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Trumbull Co. Land Reutilization Corp. draws raves
By Ed Runyan
WARREN
Government and business officials alike sang the praises of the new Trumbull County Land Reutilization Corp.
The LRC, or county land bank, is under the guidance of Sam Lamancusa, Trumbull County treasurer, who is the corporation’s president and chairman.
Jeff Adler, an assistant county prosecutor who has assisted Lamancusa in creating the corporation, says the Ohio legislation that the corporation operates under cuts the time it takes for an abandoned property to be offered to a new owner after foreclosure.
This allows the large number of foreclosed-on homes around the county to be acquired by the corporation and re-sold quickly, thereby preventing blight.
Under existing law, properties that have gone through foreclosure proceedings at the common-pleas court get sold at one of two annual sheriff sales, Adler said.
But under the laws of the LRC, the property can be transferred to the LRC 45 days after a judge signs the foreclosure decree.
As real-estate agent James Pirko of Howard Hanna of Howland put it Tuesday, the current foreclosure process can take two, three and more years to complete, by which time the home on the property “has been ruined to the point of no return.”
Trumbull is the third county in Ohio to make use of the legislation, which was enacted in the spring of 2009. Cuyahoga was the first; Lucas County was the second. Mahoning County is working to get its corporation ready, said Roger Smith of Mahoning County’s Lien Forward Ohio.
Pirko, secretary of the Mahoning Valley Real Estate Investors Association, said, “We are the people who rehab houses for a living.”
The organization supports the creation of LRCs in Trumbull and Mahoning County because they will promote “responsible ownership,” because “from our member standpoint, the sooner the county can get the property, the less labor and material it will take to rehabilitate.”
The amount of blight across the state hurts landlords because it brings down the value of all rental properties, Pirko noted.
“What Sam Lamancusa and these people have done is a major step forward to get these properties back on the market,” Pirko said.
Lamancusa and the corporation’s five other members — county Commissioners Frank Fuda and Paul Heltzel, Warren Mayor Michael O’Brien, Howland Township Administrator Darlene St. George and longtime real-estate professional and former Howland fiscal officer Sam Delaquila — met earlier this week at the county commissioners’ conference room.
One of the next steps for the corporation will be to have a “summit” in April with the lending institutions that own property in Trumbull County and a similar summit for building contractors, Lamancusa said.
Trumbull County commissioners approved a funding source for the corporation at Wednesday’s commissioners meeting — an additional 2.5 percent fee on real estate that is delinquent on its taxes and assessments.
The corporation has a website at http://trumbullcountylandbank.org.