WASHINGTON 鈥� Montgomery County is hardly immune to the glut of vacant, foreclosed homes that exist in the state of Maryland, but the county council is hoping a bill that passed unanimously last week will help put more of those homes on the market.
The bill still needs County Executive Ike Leggett鈥檚 signature, though a veto seems unlikely.
The bill鈥檚 aim is to get foreclosed properties on the state鈥檚 registry. Councilman Tom Hucker, who was a state delegate when the legislature passed a law giving the county this authority, said banks that own these homes are often slow to get homes on the registry in order to avoid paying transfer and property taxes.
鈥淭here (are) over 500 empty homes that are just left there to rot in our neighborhoods,鈥� Hucker said. 鈥淭hey鈥檙e owned by national banks. We can鈥檛 make the national banks sell the property.鈥�
But Hucker argues when the banks hold on to these homes, it exacts a toll on the neighborhoods that surround them and the first responders who serve them.
鈥淭hey attract crime,鈥� said Hucker. 鈥淭hey attract homeless people and squatters. They sometimes attract people who go in there to have a drug party. They鈥檙e twice as likely to be a case of arson.
鈥淥ne reason we need these people to register with the state foreclosed property registry is so first responders know who to contact if anything goes wrong with the property. But some of these national banks have been deliberately skipping out on the foreclosure registry because it allows them to skip out on the county鈥檚 transfer tax.鈥�
But now banks that don鈥檛 meet the 30-day deadline to get those properties registered could be fined as much as $1,000 per day by the county.
鈥淲e can鈥檛 do everything,鈥� said Hucker. 鈥淏ut that鈥檚 one thing we ought to be doing, giving them an incentive to get it back on the market and issuing the fines.鈥�
