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City attorney warns pursuing abandoned-house foreclosures will require outside counsel and up-front funding
Summary
Council heard that the city lacks in-house legal capacity to pursue liens and foreclosures on abandoned properties, and outside counsel rates of about $200/hour (attorney) and $125/hour (paralegal) were cited; staff said some abatement costs are recoverable but not necessarily fully.
The city attorney told the council on May 11 that the city’s civil legal team is too small to handle the specialized, time-consuming work of turning abatement judgments into liens and foreclosures.
John Brody, city attorney, said his office has only two civil attorneys and “would have to farm that work out” to outside firms if the council directed a more aggressive campaign on abandoned and dangerous buildings.
Brody gave a practical sense of likely contract costs: outside attorneys would bill “somewhere in the area of $200 an hour,” and paralegals about $125 an hour, with ancillary costs for printing and travel. He warned that the upfront costs would vary by property and that the initial phase would likely be the most expensive as a firm determines the best process for each case.
Brody and Director Eric Fountain described a recent example: the city pursued abatement and recovery on an 815 Capital property that generated about $40,000 in abatement costs and took years to resolve; title was only recently gained. Brody said that history illustrates why the city may prefer to hire a firm that can develop an efficient, repeatable process before heavy filing begins.
Council members asked whether legal fees could be recouped through liens on properties. Brody said the answer is “maybe” and cautioned that the city should not expect to be made whole in every case. He said recoverability depends on each property’s value, outstanding medical liens and the judicial path a case requires.
The conversation did not produce a motion or appropriation. Council members indicated support for giving staff tools to pursue problem properties and asked staff to return with budget options for contracting outside counsel and paralegal support.
Next steps discussed by members and staff include scoping likely caseloads, estimating aggregate costs by tier of property, and returning to the council with formal budget requests should the council want to proceed with contracted legal help.
