LAS VEGAS (KSNV MyNews3) – There is a new plan to clean up those run down, foreclosed homes in local neighborhoods.
Jumping off of an ordinance Las Vegas passed a few months ago, Clark County commissioners approved an ordinance to register and track all foreclosures in the county.
On Tuesday, they approved the final phases to get those blighted properties cleaned up. Part of the contract involved deciding on a property management company that will actually go out and inspect these foreclosures to fix them up if they need work.
County Commissioner Chris Giunchigliani wasn't shy in stating big banks haven't done their due diligence taking care of damaged foreclosures.
"I still wish I didn't even have to have this conversation. [I wish] the banks were actually doing what they should have been doing with foreclosed properties in the first place,” she said. “You want to make sure you get it right because this is very important to our neighborhoods."
On Tuesday, all seven commissioners approved the final phase of this ordinance, ironing out the contract details. Chairwoman Susan Brager, however, still had a few concerns.
"I'm not certain, how it's going to change an abandoned property, how it's going to get a lawn green or rocks to de-weeded, or windows boarded up,” she said.
Brager also questioned how many foreclosures in the county are even left -- a concern that stems from A.B. 284, a foreclosure bill passed in October that drastically slowed the rate of foreclosures on the market by requiring banks to be more careful with their paperwork.
Brager, a real estate agent, is asking the state attorney general to reconsider this bill because of the shrinking inventory in the valley.
"To get the AG to reconsider the law A.B. 284, which really impacted our economy much worse than it should have. And so everything has stopped. We don't want it to stop,” she said.
Meantime, the bank will have to pay a $200 registration fee to list that property with the county, then hire a property management company to check the home. The money is then used to make sure lawns are kept up and pools aren't green.
"They will then make sure that they're keeping the properties up so our neighborhoods don't go into further deterioration,” Giunchigliani said.
That contract is with the federal property registration corporation. Once they iron out all of the details, county officials say this ordinance will be in full effect sometime this summer.
