Dealing with Muncipal Fines on Your Florida Tax Deed Investment

If you're an avid tax deed investor in Florida or even an REO buyer, you'll know that dealing with municipal fines can be time consuming and costly.

Avoidance and Due Diligence

Most liens are wiped out upon issuance of a tax deed after the clerk sale.  The county has gone thru their statutory noticing process which will eliminate most private liens, mortgages, etc.

However, governmental liens on the property will remain.  These include mowing fines, demo fees, EPA liens, and special assessments.  I've seen these fees go up to the tens of thousands of dollars on even the most basic of single family houses.  Palm Beach County, for instance, was charging $100 a day for mowing fines and I've seen on Bigger Pockets' forum posts that those amounts can be up to $250 a day.

On any Florida tax deed purchase, I recommend checking with the county code enforcement office before you make your purchase.  You can run a title report before the auction; however, this can get expensive when you're bidding on many properties.  Contacting code enforcement should give you an idea of what sort of charges are on there and how the county will be in dealing with them.

If the property is unkept and you're unsure of the amount of liens, it may be best to just avoid bidding/purchasing the property altogether.

Negotiating with Code Enforcement

If you end up buying the tax deed, you'll want to contact code enforcement right away.  Although unproven by evidence, I'm convinced some counties wait until a "problem" property transfers ownership and then they strike with a multitude of fines.

Keep in mind, county code enforcement is not the enemy.  They are not out to make money (I hope).  They are paid to make sure their neighborhoods don't turn into blight.  Most counties in Florida assign a specific code enforcement office for an area -- find out who that is and what it is that's needed to clear up any issues.

If there are existing fines on the property, you should be able to reduce the fines to a fraction of the amount by promising to remedy the problem immediately (and be sure to follow up and actually do the clean up promptly).  Get it in writing, if you can.