Cleveland Housing Court Judge Begins Belting Lenders With Contempt Citations For Failing To Answer For Code Violations On Dilapidated Foreclosures

In Cleveland, Ohio, The Plain Dealer reports:

• One day last month, Cleveland Housing Court Judge Raymond Pianka waited for absentee owners facing charges that they neglected their property to come and explain why they shouldn't be held in contempt. The mostly out-of-town companies had been no-shows at previous hearings, and now it looked as if they would be missing again, despite Pianka's summons.

• Court staff checked the hallway and called the companies' names. But nobody answered. Pianka found them in contempt of court and fined them $1,000 a day until they appeared before him, ratcheting up the financial stakes for far-flung owners in a city scarred by vacant and dilapidated housing. For Cleveland's lone housing judge, this contempt hearing was an unprecedented legal move during an unprecedented housing crisis that is further eroding neighborhoods across the city.

For more, see Cleveland Housing Court judge gets tough, holds absentee landlords in contempt who fail to appear.

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