Fighting with City Hall

[Jason Abrams]

Hi everyone,

Would love to get anyone's personal experience if they have every gone toe-to-toe with City Hall.

At the moment, I'm the contractual buyer for a single family residence in Greenacers, FL. The house I'm looking to buy has a mother-in-law suite in the back of the property. I got this property under contract for $55k. Both units will need to be rebuilt as they are beyond repair, or at least, the cost of new construction outweighs fixing them. All in, we are looking at about $230k for a house that would sell for $330k, so the numbers are there. However, those numbers only reflect building a main house only. The reason is because the town of Greenacres hates these secondary dwellings. From what I've gathered, they don't like knowing people can rent them out and make money on a lot that's zoned, strictly, as low-density residential.

Second, and the biggest issue, is that this property has $400k in code violations against it. YES, you read that correctly. The code enforcement team has been on my side since the beginning to help me and the seller get the property back into compliance, so we can appeal to a magistrate to have the liens reduced. However, because the zoning department found out I'd like rebuild the mother-in-law suite in the back, they are purposely (and yes, I know this for a FACT) trying now to foreclose on the property, so I can't rebuild the unit in the back. Even though my plans for the property have nothing to do with code violations, they are using the liens as power over me and the seller.

My question to anyone one of you is, what steps, if any, have you taken to fight city hall? I have an attorney, but even they don't know what to do next. I feel I have tried everything and maybe this post is futile, but I'm trying to cover every angle I have left. I've been working on this for months and would give it up if I have to, but there's a great opportunity here and I would hate to see it slip away.

To preemptively answer inevitable questions - this property would cash flow +$2k/mo (buy and hold). No, I'm not married to this deal, but I have worked hard to see it come to fruition, so I would like see this fight through (there's maybe 2 months of fighting left) and I have the time. The only agreement the city will make with me is to tear down the mother-in-law. I want to rebuild it, because I'm confident I can prove to them, in circuit court, and through the appeals process, that it is a legal secondary dwelling which now makes this property a duplex. Add $50k to the property value right there, hence my desire to rebuild.

I'm sure there will be more questions than answers, but please help me with any advice you may have. I'm open to anything at this point.

Jason