When Morgan Voke bought a rundown house with leaky roofs and vacant lots next door when selling tax deeds, he thought he would renovate the property and improve the small pockets of Eastern Altamonte’s historic black quarters. Ta.
However, Voke was surprised to learn the properties (now combined into one lot) that carry tens of thousands of dollars of code enforcement futures after years of neglect by the previous owner. The bill was his now. This came after Voke and his business partner paid $120,602 to buy the tattered property.
“There has to be a better way,” he said. “No one can remember buying one of these aged homes (an aged properties) and revising them as they come with the lien.”
Ultimately, Seminole Commissioners unanimously agreed on Tuesday to waive the remaining $24,781 with a lien following an appeal from Voke.
Still, county leaders acknowledged a long-standing problem that almost every local government struggles. What to do with vacant or rough properties that are continuously dragged by the value of the nearby home and the quality of the neighborhood.
Local governments usually levie a lien as a penalty on property owners if they refuse to clean up the mess. But should those liens be the responsibility of new owners who want to be renovated or rebuilt?
In many cases, liens accumulate more than the value of the property. For Voke, the four-person lien totaled $145,383, while the property was valuated at $137,000. After he purchased the land and structure from Seminole County for $120,602 on tax deed sales, the county seized the property because the previous owner was unable to pay taxes – his purchase price was lien I went to cut back and pay the associated fees, and although it was there, I still have a lien of over $20,000 more.
Otherwise, the owner has long been dead, and families living elsewhere may not notice a deterioration in the structure accumulating code-enforcement lien.
Voke and others say requiring new owners to repay existing liens is hampering efforts to modify and clean the property and improve the neighborhood.
“It doesn’t help bring property to a place that benefits your neighborhood,” Commissioner Amy Lockhart said. “Well, everyone is leaving it. Investors don’t even consider buying real estate, and it keeps sitting there and causing trouble to the neighborhood.”
As Seminole officials are currently working on updating the county’s code enforcement procedures (the process that should be completed by the end of the year), Lockhart and other commissioners will purchase or acquire aging property aimed at improving. He said it should be easy for people. It’s either to take a break from the lien or reduce them by county staff. In the long run, it will help improve neighborhoods dotted with vacant, rough structures.
“I think our staff need to have the flexibility to determine whether the lien reduction request comes from the person who created the issue,” she said. County staff initially denied Voke’s request to cut liens and forced them to appeal to the county commission.
However, Commissioner Lee Constantine said that not all liens should be waived.
“We need a reasonable solution,” Constantine said. “To get property owners to follow, we need a carrot and stick approach with liens, but improvements must also be encouraged.”
The county has an outstanding code enforcement lien of approximately $55 million from scores of property owners who have not complied with county regulations for many years. These include properties scattered with trash, tall grass, filthy pools, perched roofs, overgrown vegetation, or structures built without proper permission.
One of the most infamous cases is the Alpine Street home owned by Alan Davis, a seminole so-called “junkman,” who has pinched his nose with county cords for over a quarter of a century. He has $5.5 million for uninhabited construction, overgrown vegetation, junk scattering his front yard, including broken cars, rusty bicycles, appliances, and statues of human butt county executives. I got a fine and a lien.
The home was valuated at $141,422, according to records from the Seminole County Real Estate Appraiser’s Office.
It can only be sold at public auctions to repay late real estate taxes if the property owner fails to pay property taxes for several years. However, the new owner who posts the prize will then be added with a lien.
In the case of Voke, he and his business partners purchased a rundown home on Williams Street in November 2023 for tax sale for $102,500.
Five months later, he purchased an adjacent lot near the railroad tracks for $18,102. He also discovered that parts of the house were built on adjacent property decades ago, so he combined lots.
After spending tens of thousands of dollars to renovate the property, including the home, Voke was applied to reducing or eliminating the remaining lien. However, county staff denied his request as Seminole regulations stated that “lien should have been considered when reaching the purchase price.”
Voke alleged that he “fixed” the house violation and “cleaned the vacant property next door.” In fact, he has been an eye-catching eyebrows of neighbours dotted with cluttered vacant properties for decades.
“There should be an easier path in the county,” he said of the lien while standing in front of the house on a recent morning. “I’m everything: Let’s look great on everything, not just for me, but for everyone.
“If someone is malicious, lazy and doesn’t want to clean up their property, you get it completely. That’s another story. You need some kind of case for each case evaluation.”
Commissioner Chair Jay Zenbower agreed that the code enforcement process should be streamlined so that new owners can quickly improve their rundown properties.
“What we’re really trying to do is to quickly clean things up, get grown into cords and prevent them from becoming eyesore,” he said.
