Detroit goes after tax auction bidders with blight fines

[MSUguy]

A city agency working to collect unpaid blight tickets is turning up the heat on a couple hundred property owners who owe Detroit nearly a quarter-million dollars.
An amendment in the state act governing tax foreclosure was signed this year by Gov. Rick Snyder, preventing bidders in foreclosure auctions from acquiring new properties if they owe back taxes or blight fines.

Miriam Blanks-Smart, who heads the city’s Department of Administrative Hearings, said her department generated a report on bidders with unpaid blight tickets and gave it to the Wayne County treasurer’s office to ensure bidders are held accountable under the new law. The bidders, she said, are prohibited from closing on the properties unless outstanding judgments are paid.

“This is the way that we stop recalcitrant property owners from continuing to amass property and allowing them to be in blighted conditions,” Blanks-Smart said. “If you want to go in there and want to buy property, the state law provides that you are going to maintain the property you already do have.”

http://www.detroitnews.com/story/new...ines/76685170/

I knew about the new law and I'm glad to see some follow through on the city's part.

[Hypestyles]

lawsuits and criminal actions need to be pursued. This includes the DIBC operations.

[Gpwrangler]

lawsuits and criminal actions need to be pursued. This includes the DIBC operations.

As long as the city tickets it's own blighted buildings too.

[Richard]

[[Blanks-Smart said 203 successful bidders for the October 2015 tax auction list had unpaid blight tickets involving 365 property addresses in Detroit owing more than $242,000. The outstanding fines were sent electronically to the bidders in mid-November.)

Kinda shows who is really responsible for a majority of the blight,a few with a lot of properties.