It shall be unlawful for the owner of any dwelling unit or structure who has received a compliance order or upon whom a notice of violation has been served to sell, transfer, mortgage, lease or otherwise dispose of such dwelling unit or structure to another until the provisions of the compliance order or notice of violation have been complied with, or until such owner shall first furnish the grantee, transferee, mortgagee or lessee a true copy of any compliance order or notice of violation issued by the Code Official and shall furnish to the Code Official a signed and notarized statement from the grantee, transferee, mortgagee or lessee, acknowledging the receipt of such compliance order or notice of violation and fully accepting the responsibility without condition for making the corrections or repairs required by such compliance order or notice of violation.
(2009 Code, § 29-1-45)
Editor’s note:
When a property has a pending violation order, it is unlawful for an owner to sell, transfer, mortgage, lease or otherwise dispose of the property without either following the order or advising the buyer, mortgagee and the like of the pending violation. The owner must prove that the buyer has received notice of pending violations by providing the Code Official with a signed, notarized receipt from the new transferee.
Determining who is the current owner of a building is a frustrating and difficult activity. To evade code enforcement action, owners will frequently transfer ownership of their property. This provision of the Code permits the Code Official to cite the seller if he or she did not provide the Code Official with the required notification when the property was transferred; thus, even though the seller may avoid complying with the outstanding violation orders, he or she can still be charged with a violation for failing to provide proof that the transferee was aware of the pending orders.