Owners of abandoned foreclosed homes in Prince George’s County will have to fork over a yearly fee for helping to clean up neglected property if the county council gets its way. A bill in the Maryland General Assembly would give the council authority to require owners of abandoned foreclosed residential property to pay a $75 registration fee each year. The fees would be placed in a fund to maintain neglected homes that officials say have contributed to the decrease of property values in the county.
The county council voted to support the legislation, sponsored in the General Assembly by Prince George’s Democratic state Sen. Victor Ramirez.
“That means we can actually be proactive in sending people to check out empty properties, seeing if people are taking care of them and, if not, then we can actually pay for a contractor or ourselves to go out there and do this,” said 2nd District County Councilman Will Campos.
The county would not require fees from debtors whose homes were lost because of foreclosure, according to the legislation.
Prince George’s County has the highest foreclosure rate of any county in Maryland, with one filing for every 457 households in January, according to statistics from RealtyTrac.
“I’m seeing houses where no one is doing anything to them,” said Pearl Whetzel, a Realtor who sells homes across Prince George’s County with the Sentinel Realty Group.
“A lot of times the agents are putting the houses on the market, but then no one comes back to maintain the property,” she said. “And so you know, you walk into a home and there’s mold everywhere, but nobody knew the mold was growing like it had because they had not been back to check the house.”
In January, there were 705 foreclosures in Prince George’s County. Montgomery County had 157, and Baltimore City had 140, according to RealtyTrac. But the county has seen signs of improvement, with foreclosures down 37.4 percent compared with January 2010.
The state legislation would also make it a misdemeanor for owners not to keep the property up to neighborhood standards, free from dead vegetation and discarded items in the yard. But in a letter to the Prince George’s County delegation, the council members say they would like the bill amended to make violators face a civil fine and not a criminal charge.
Owners listed on the abandoned foreclosed registry would be deleted — and no longer subject to fees — after selling or renting the property to someone who lives in the house.
