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Owners of abandoned properties are hard to track down

The map shows the number of foreclosure cases received by the Montgomery County Sherriff's Office to be sold that never made it to auction from January 1, 2006, through September 30, 2009.

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By Ken McCall, Staff Writer Updated 8:54 PM Saturday, October 17, 2009

DAYTON — The house at 24 Glencoe Ave. looks bad on the outside.

The red trim of the vacant two-story house off Wayne Avenue is faded and peeling. The false brick siding and roof are deteriorating. A broken blind hangs askew in a front window. The small front lawn is a mess and graffiti festoons a wooden fence along the side of the property.

The house has drawn complaints from neighbors, and John Carter and two other Dayton housing inspectors are here to see just how bad it is inside.

Around back, the porch is overgrown with weeds and the glass is broken out of the back door. Because it’s open to the outside, it’s legally an unsecured house, and they can go in to inspect.

What are they looking for?

“As many violations as we can find to build a case for putting it in the nuisance program,” Carter says.

Carter has been tracking this property — a bank walkaway — since 2005. He’s become the city’s expert in tracking down owners of vacant properties, a difficult task in the era of mortgages sold and resold to investors. Through savvy use of computer databases and developing hundreds of contacts in the default mortgage industry, he’s tracked ownership of thousands of vacant homes, and gotten lenders and owners to secure and maintain the properties.

Over the last five years Carter has saved the city more than $50,000 in costs for boarding up vacant houses alone. He’s received nationwide recognition for his efforts, winning Governing magazine’s 2008 Public Official of the Year award.

The case of 24 Glencoe, however, is a difficult one.

The house was purchased in January 2003 by the current owner, Donald Hennessey of McMurray, Pa. By October 2004, a foreclosure case had been opened, and Homecomings Financial Network, Inc. — which is owned by GMAC — was granted a foreclosure in March 2005. The property was ordered for sale at sheriff’s auction the following month.

Everything appeared to be on track until the appraisal required for a sheriff’s auction came in at $30,000 — well under the $71,792 that was owed on the mortgage. The sheriff’s sale was canceled in May and a few days later the lender dismissed the foreclosure.

So even though Hennessey thought the house had gone back to the bank, he still owned the vacant and abandoned property — and was on the hook for the growing property taxes and zoning fines from the city.

Carter tracked the Hennesseys down in Pennsylvania and was told the couple had purchased 17 propertiesin what they described as a housing scam. A number of such scams have been prosecuted in federal court in recent years. They denied they still owned the house and even hired a lawyer to tell the city they no longer own the property.

“I said I was sorry to inform them that the bank stopped the foreclosure, discharged the loan and never took title to the property, so it’s still theirs,” Carter said.

Meanwhile, going to court to force the Hennesseys to maintain the property is difficult — and potentially expensive — because they live out of state. So neighbors and the city are left to pick up the trash on a 95-year-old house that’s been sitting vacant for at least four years.

Inside the house

Alan Carr, a conservation specialist with the city’s housing division, removes a nailed up door and the team goes inside.

Plaster and paint from the walls and ceiling cover the floor. The kitchen sink is missing. Thieves have also stripped the copper wiring and pipes. Children’s toys — a stuffed monkey, a rusting miniature fire engine, among others — litter the floor. So do dead birds.

“At one time this was definitely one of the nicer homes in the neighborhood,” Carr said, looking around at the damage. “It has an entrance area. It has a living room with a fireplace, a separate dining room area. It has a huge kitchen.

“The whole deal is almost criminal.”

The team walks through the house, totaling up the damage.

“Walls and ceiling deteriorated throughout. Paint peeling throughout. Floor covering damage throughout,” Carter intones. “Plumbing fixtures missing. Kitchen cabinets damaged and deteriorated. Plumbing damaged and deteriorated throughout. Doors not properly operable. Windows missing. Locking devices not working. Windows not working properly.”

After the inspection, what does Carter think?

“I’m hoping they tear it down as soon as possible,” he says.

So does Glen Clark, who has lived two houses away, on the corner of Glencoe and Wayne, for 40 years.

“It’s kind of sad,” Clark says, shaking his head, “because 12 years ago there was a woman living there, a young professional, and she kept it immaculate.”

Clark and his wife, Susan Brockman, have the dubious honor of having two walkaways within spitting distance. The other is next door on Wayne.

“It’s such an eyesore,” Clark says.

Clark and Brockman have been calling the city about both properties, and just want them gone. They’re too broken down to make rehabilitation pay off, he said.

It’s hard to say if the two derelict houses have specifically devalued his home, Clark admits. Property values have been declining in the whole area.

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