OLD BRIDGE — The Township Council adopted a resolution authorizing liens to be placed on more than a dozen properties at the Aug. 11 meeting.
“Abandoned properties have been an issue in Old Bridge, and we are addressing it. With liens, it is not just abandoned properties, but ones that are not maintained, too. And we want to address them as soon as we can,” Business Administrator Christopher Marion said.
The resolution authorizes liens to be placed on 17 properties throughout the township. The property liens range from $102 to $2,193 for infractions ranging from simple maintenance work such as cutting high grass to addressing dangerous situations such as an open pool on an abandoned property.
The total of all the liens on the properties listed in the resolution is $9,466 for work done between May 21 and June 23.
Marion said the liens are not solely for abandoned properties, but include properties owned by banks or mortgage companies.
“Abandoned properties are different than foreclosed properties or even unkempt properties,” he said. “A lot of times, the property owner will address the issue. But if there is an impact on health and safety, like a pool with standing water, we work with code enforcement or get the Department of Public Works out there and address it as soon as we can and then charge them accordingly.”
Mayor Owen Henry added that when a lien is placed on a property, it is due to minor maintenance issues in most cases.
“We find who [owns] has the property … and we give them a certain amount of time. They have it done 90 percent of the time. Only a few times we have had to call our contractor in when it’s a safety issue like an unguarded pool, then we will have it done immediately,” he said.
“It is unfortunate we have to spend resources tracking these people down, but we are giving them their due diligence to get the work done themselves.”
Marion said the number of complaints about abandoned and foreclosed properties in Old Bridge has remained fairly constant.
“We have had the same number of complaints to code enforcement over the past few years — not a large spike. The system is currently complaint-driven, so as complaints come in, we try to forward them to code enforcement or the health department,” he said. “ … We have a list of properties that we keep an eye on.”
Henry said the liens are paid to the township when a property is sold to a new owner, or an investment firm buys the lien. He said a lien must be satisfied before a property title can be transferred to a new owner.
“In December of every year, we have a tax sale where, if a property charge is still there after Nov. 10, it goes up for sale,” said Dawn Kronowski, tax collector.
“Investment companies will pay the lien on the property and then put their own lien on the property for that amount. At that point, the township becomes the middleman for the deal. Investment companies buying liens is becoming increasingly popular now.”