NY Department of Financial Services fines PHH Mortgage Corp. $119,000 for code violations for vacant property
New York: Department of Financial Services (DFS) has fined PHH
Mortgage Corp. $119,000.00 for failing to adhere to the code compliance regulations in place, for maintaining a vacant property in New Lebanon, NY.
The investigation by NYDFS found the property was found to be in code violation, lacking maintenance measures for more than 238 days from point of vacant property registration with DFS. The law requires vacant and abandoned property to be inspected and kept to code for needed maintenance, and any updates to property ownership or status must be filed by the property owners or servicer within 30 days.
Per the NYDFS press release, “A material status change includes the occurrence of any event that would remove the
property from the requirements of the law, such as the completion of the foreclosure process, the demolition of the house, the property becoming real estate owned, or a lien release – and a transfer
in the servicing rights.”
Property owners found in to be violation of the code compliance law and NYDFS vacant property registry are subject to fines up to
$500.00 per day, until such time as the individual code violations have been remedied.
Vacant lots, commercial properties, real estate owned properties that are not otherwise subject to a mortgage are not covered by the vacant property law and are not to be listed in the NYDFS registry, according to the DFS press release.
Ascent combines focused research and centralized operations oversight to create innovative outsourced solutions for code enforcement violations, vacant property registration ordinances, property preservation, and other vendor management needs from across the United States.