Ohio Senate Amends Proposed Foreclosure Expedition Bill
Updated 1/29/16: The Port Clinton News Herald published an article titled Improving neighborhoods with new foreclosure process.
Link to article
Updated 12/30/15: The Daily Reporter released an article titled House moves bill targeting blight.
Updated 11/18/15: DS News published an article titled Delgado Applauds Passage of Ohio Foreclosure Fast Track Bill, Urges Senate to Act.
Updated 6/22/15: On May 28, 2015, DS News published an article titled Re-Introduced Ohio Foreclosure Expedition Bill Passes House, Heads for Senate Vote.
OH HB 134 Summary [pdf]
Updated 1/9/15: On January 9, 2015, DS News released an article titled Ohio Lawmakers Plan to Re-Introduce Foreclosure Expedition Bill.
Updated 12/11/14: On December 10, 2014, DS News published an article titled Amended Ohio Foreclosure Expedition Bill Dies in Senate Finance Committee.
Link to article
Industry Update
December 9, 2014
An Ohio House bill that would have expedited the residential foreclosure and transfer process and taken steps toward eliminating blight and vandalism in foreclosed, vacated properties has been amended and was introduced in the Ohio State Senate Tuesday, a source close to one of the bill’s sponsors told DS News.
Ohio HB 223 originally called for the launch of a pilot program in three counties in Ohio that would skip the sheriff’s appraisal process for foreclosed homes and allow foreclosed, abandoned homes to be sold with no minimum bid. In its original form, the bill would have significantly cut the time that a home sat vacant and abandoned while the foreclosure process is being completed. Other states were already looking at adopting similar legislation using Ohio HB 223 as a model, according to one of the original bill’s sponsors, Ohio State Representative Cheryl Grossman.
The amended bill, as proposed by Ohio’s Senate Financial Committee, eliminates the pilot program – what the source referred to as the “meat and potatoes” of the bill – and calls for a study commission, ensuring that the lengthy foreclosure process will not be shortened anytime soon and vacant and abandoned homes will remain in that state, contributing to the spread of blight in Ohio neighborhoods.
“Earlier today, the Ohio State Senate rendered a bill impotent, a bill which would have taken steps to ensure that these magnets for crime would be more quickly rehabilitated and promote the safety of neighborhoods across the state,” said Ed Delgado, President and CEO of the Five Star Institute. “A bill that could have become the template for a national policy on the treatment of vacant or abandoned properties. To say that today’s events are both short-sighted and disappointing would be a horrible understatement.”
Grossman said the idea for the bill was first proposed by Columbus City Attorney Rick Pfeiffer, and it was introduced to the Ohio Senate in June 2013 by Grossman, a Republican, and Ohio State Representative Michael Curtin, a Democrat. It passed unanimously in the Ohio House in April 2014.
One of the main purposes of the bill was to work to eliminate blight, which Grossman called a “cancer in neighborhoods” and a “horrible problem. Nothing good can come from these homes.” She said the longer they sit vacant, the greater the chance for more serious damage to the home will occur. Also, blighted properties often lead to vandalism and violent crime – and sometimes even tragic loss of life.
“Michaela Diemer, Mary Ellen Gutierrez, Jasmine Trotter, Anith Jones, Ahlyja Pinson … the list of names goes on,” Delgado said. “These are just a few of the hundreds of women have been raped or murdered in or near a vacant and abandoned property. They’re ordinary people. People that were mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. The issue of vacant properties has become more than the expedient treatment of a distressed residential property. These shells have become a bastion for weapons, drugs, gangs, molestations and violent assaults. How many more must be harmed or tragically lose their life before a policy of common sense comes into play?”
The amended bill, introduced to the senate Tuesday, will likely be sent to the senate floor for a vote on Wednesday, then to the house floor for a vote the following day. If it does not pass in both the house and the senate, it will go to a conference committee – but it is expected to pass in both, the source close to the bill’s sponsors said.
The source close to sponsors of the original bill was disappointed that the bill was “gutted,” but said of the amended bill that “something is better than nothing.”
Source: DS News
Additional Resource:
Safeguard Properties Fast-Track Legislation Resource Center
