BOCC Considers Help from Registrar on Abandoned Properties

BRADENTON -- With the recession came foreclosures on homes and businesses alike, and in its wake, vacant and abandoned properties. Inner city blight is the fastest growing part of many municipalities, and the evidence is all around us. Banks pick and choose which parking lots and buildings lie abandoned and out of compliance with ordinances designed to keep property values from plummeting. VacantRegistry.com is a federal property registrar designed to turn the tide on this costly neglect. 

Neil Young once sang that "Rust never sleeps." Well neither do broken shutters, overgrown parking lots and fallen signs. They keep eating away at the property value and promise that once was. These neglected dreams of the past are like a loose spoke on a wheel. If left unattended, the next ones to go are those on either side.

When VacantRegistry's "Strategic Planning Executive," Thomas Darnell attended Tuesday's BOCC Workshop to introduce county officials to what can be done about abandon properties, he explained that a big problem is simple math.

 "What keeps some foreclosed property owners from keeping up with the maintenance is the cost exceeds the value of the property," he said.

Darnell says VacantRegistry expedites the process by keeping all stakeholders connected to one another and away from the limbo so many fall into.

County governments don't always have the time and resources to prevent properties from falling into a state of dispair. Federal Property Registration Corp. (FPRC) companies, like Vacant Registry, promote stronger communication between lenders, neighborhood associations, local governments and fire/law enforcement officials.

Sometimes vacant and abandon properties sit for years, FPRCs attempt to dispatch options to all stakeholders before blight matures to chronic slums.

Commissioner Robin DiSabatino who spent years in the real estate industry said, "This sound like a win-win situation."

The Manatee County Commission will soon be taking up the issue as to whether FPRCs are the answer for the increasing amount of blighted properties surrounding many areas of the county.