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IAR has issued its second Call for Action for the 99th General Assembly, this time to stop a bill (SB1380) that would allow municipalities to attach a lien for nuisance code violations on non-offending properties. (Link to take action is here.)

Municipalities have the power under state law to attach liens to property that has been the subject of code violations and which resulted in the municipality having to clean up property at public expense.

Current Illinois law already grants municipalities several tools for dealing with their costs for cutting of weed or grass and for removing or abating nuisances from private property to target the offending property.

The Illinois Association of REALTORS® was instrumental in working with municipalities to address such nuisances, including provisions to allow local governments to have a super lien superceding the mortgage lien in certain mortgage foreclosure and abandoned property situations.

Under the proposed rules a property that has nothing to do with a violating property, but which had a common owner, would be encumbered by the lien.

IAR sees this as an affront to private property rights. Muncipalities already have the law on thier side when it comes to recovering costs for cleanup work done to address code violations. There’s no need for this legislative overreach.

SB1380 is sponsored by Sen. David Koehler. The bill is scheduled for its third reading this week, which means that it could come up for a floor vote soon.

IAR’s members need to take action today to pressure lawmakers to stop this bill from passing.