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Council to toughen its crackdown on city land contracts
YOUNGSTOWN
City council postponed a vote Wednesday on legislation to help stop certain predatory lending contracts because local activists who back the policy change want to include tougher language.
Specifically, Alliance for Congregational Transformation Influencing Our Neighborhoods [ACTION] and the Youngstown Neighborhood Development Corp. want the proposal to require appraisals for every land-installment contract and a minimum $5,000 fee paid by companies to victims of predatory contracts, said Councilman Julius Oliver, D-1st, who is co-sponsoring the legislation.
Council, he said, is in agreement that those two provisions will be added.
“We are on board with it and we want to protect the citizens as much as possible,” Oliver said.
Council on Wednesday referred the proposal to its community planning and economic development committee with plans to include the two additional requirements, he said.
“We’re pleased that city council listened to us and plans to include our recommendations,” said Rosie Taylor, an ACTION board member.
The land-installment contracts proposal would require an inspection and a title search before a sale is finalized.
Land-installment contracts have a person pay the purchase price of a property in installments while the owner retains title to the property.
ACTION, YNDC and various neighborhood groups have also sought to get council to crack down on rent-to-own land contracts. That will be addressed by council after the land-installment contracts proposal is approved.
Under rent-to-own land contracts, prospective owners pay rent to a seller for a predetermined number of years before having the option to purchase the property.
Some contracts, however, place the burden of maintaining, repairing and dealing with financial issues attached to the property on the renters, offering them no protections that would otherwise be available to traditional renters or mortgage-holders.
This could leave renters open to any number of potential problems, including spending thousands of dollars on repairs or agreeing to rent a property that is, unknown to them, in foreclosure.