>> the good morning. today is december 15, 2010. this is the meeting of the abatement appeals board. the first item on the agenda is roll-call. [roll call]

commissioner romero is excused. we have a quorum the next item is item b, the oath. but all parties giving testimony today please rise and raise your right hand? do you swear the testimony you are about to give is the truth to the best of your knowledge? thank you. item c is a request for aab jurisdiction. the first item on this agenda is a request for jurisdiction. in this case, the appellate missed the deadline for filing of the appeal and as a result, executive secretary rejected the filing as of late. under chapter 77.5b of the administrative code, the aab may grant lee jurisdiction if they

find that her appeal was due to mr. presentation, mistake, or other error on the part of the city. under this first agenda item, the aab will consider the request and each party will be given three minutes to make their case as to why jurisdiction should or should not be granted. at this time, the aab will not consider the merits of the appeal, but instead, whether the late this is excusable and whether jurisdiction should be granted. >> okay, we are here to hear the order of abatement. we will hear three minutes from the apartments, then three minutes from the request air, is that correct? >> that is correct. the address on this is 595 32nd

avenue. >> mr. president, members of the board, chief housing inspector. the project -- he complained last year. we did an inspection on the 29 of last year. he should have noticed a violation at that time. what is before you is the delay appeal. the item, because it has not been abated, the property at the time was owned by the bank of new york. went to a director's hearing on february 11 of this year, and it was noted properly to the owner of the time 10 days or more from

the date of that february 11 hearing. those notices went out around the 27th, 28th of july of this year. at that time, when staff did their research, the owner of record was in fact the bank of new york. the hearing notification went to the property owner. unbeknownst to the department, there was a pending sale. the bank never notified us of this. three days before the directors hearing on february 8, the title changed. staff did not know that but we have subsequently become aware of that and a copy of that deed is in your package. the property owner that was notified 10 days before and an order was issued on the property. what happens in these cases is

we have access to the recorders information. we go online to see what they recorded documents are that exist. the problem is, when there is a new deed that is reported, it is not put into the system right away. so the system does not have, in real time, that information because there are things that are beyond our control, namely data entry from the reporters office. as you can see from your records, we did not know -- it did not show up as the current owner of record -- until we said the bill out several months later. on july 15 of this year, ms. fong became aware of the order of abatement. i sent a letter to the letter of

directors -- board of directors asking for the assessment of cost. the department reviewed the information and found that that notification was a civil matter between her and the bank, and indicated nothing else would occur. >> what is staff recommending? >> that that was a civil matter between the parties. the $1,300 in the assessment of cost is to repaid to the department. as far as recovering that, that should be between the new and old owner. that is the department's recommendation. >> it is 2009 on your recommendation. on the sheet it says 2010.

>> you are talking about the recommendation on the staff report? >> typo? >> yes, that was issued in 2009. that was a typo. any other questions? >> three minutes for the request your. -- requester. >> good morning, president, commissioners. my name is christina fong, and i am the requester of your view to grant back jurisdiction to reverse the order of abatement

as well as the penalties assessed against me. in february 2008, i became a first-time homeowner with the intent to occupy the house with my mom but had been forced to become an unwilling landlord to nonpaying occupancy. i am sad to say my mother and i are still unable to occupy the house because for the last nine months, i have had to hire an eviction attorney and company to evict the non-paying occupancy in the house. i am requesting the board to take back jurisdiction of my appeal because i find it unfair that i was denied the opportunity to fill the order of the bateman issued on february 11 since technically, as the property owner, i did not receive notification of the hearing. because i was not notified, i did not attend the scheduled hearing. consequently, i was not able to appeal this before the board and was therefore denied the right to appeal the directors'

decision within the 10 days allowed because i was not made aware that there was a proceeding. i did my due diligence once i became aware of the issue and believe that dbi was negligent in not pursuing its notices hearing and order of the basement with the bank. now that i have corrected the problem, i am forced to pay the fee that was made against the bank. when i purchased this house, i was not over there was a complaint filed with dbi or notices of proceedings that followed. this is evidence from the housing record of all documents from december 23 through april 21% to the bank of new york, the trustees. the only document that was said to me as acknowledgement that i was the owner was the august 13 final bill assessing cost of $1,300. dbi did not in good fit provide me notice at the directors hearing or order of abatement and i disagree with the directors believe that dbi for

build its obligation when it notified the bank. i believe dbi failed in its fiduciary duty to notify the property owner and is hiding behind the excuse that notice to the bank was sufficient notice to the property owner at the time. >> i have a question. how did you learn about the order of abatement? >> after going through hell after buying this house, because of the problem with trying to evict the current occupants, an attorney had advised me, since you're having so many problems, you sit see if there is a complaint filed at dbi, given the totality of my situation. that is the reason i contacted the housing inspection and asked if there was a complaint filed against the property. i am really unfamiliar with anything having to do with buying a house, let alone being

a landlord to people who are not paying. my attorney recommended that i check with dbi. that is what i found out there was a complaint in december that the furnace needed to be fixed. that is how i learned about the order of abatement. that was in july. >> and what was the role of your realtor, agent in this process? >> apparently, they did not do their fiduciary duty to help me, so i have been screwed left and right by everybody who i thought was here to protect me. it has been held. i wish i had never bought this house. >> i have a question of counsel. should we do that now or after?

this is an interesting issue of me for noticing. i have a question as to -- this is at the crux of it for me. even though there was a new owner of the time we issued a notice, we issued it to the wrong person because we believe the previous owner was still the current owner. who was the legal owner of the time of the issuance of hour notice? >> there was a notice for the directors hearing in january. then there was the actual order of abatement. at the time, the order of abatement issued ownership had changed, according to the document -- >> the follow up is, is it then the bank's responsibility to notify any subsequent owner,

transfer? that is not really within your jurisdiction -- >> this is more establishing for me whether or not i will vote to have a new hearing or not. the hearing notice was sent to the right owner, the bank? >> let me ask this question. what does our board have jurisdiction over? we do not have jurisdiction over the director board hearings. we listen to appeals for order of abatements. is that correct? i am more interested on the notice of the order of abatement. >> the issue here is why she missed the 10-day hearing of the abatement. the board needs to make a finding, whether under the code, for delay in missing the deadline was somehow caused by a misrepresentation, mistake, or terror by the city.

>> so the question is, when did the letter of a bid to go out? >> three days after the ownership change. so my question is, it is not just what we have jurisdiction over and the city failed to record in due time the order of abatement, and we can and are supposed to look at whether we can allow a rehearing of the abatement. >> it is not a rehearing. you would be granting jurisdiction to allow her appeal for the abatement order for the first time to the aab. commissioner lee: i have another follow-up question. given the city took this time and did not record it, and we sent the first letter to the bank, the owners, is there any

recourse for the city to go after the previous owner? they could have dealt with this before they sold the house, right? >> between the requester and the bank? commissioner lee: yes, the bank could have dealt with this with the city as well. they are also responsible to the city, not just her because they sold her a problem, are they not? is the bank, the previous owner, responsible for taking care of something with the city? can any odor just pass off their problems to the city of knowingly? >> it is the current owner at any time. they are responsible for the

property. commissioner murphy: looking at this, the way i see it, the rules were written in december 2009. at that time, the bank of new york own the property. there was no compliance and the case was scheduled for the directors hearing. the notification at that time went to bank of new york. between the time of the notification and the hearing, title was taken to the property. nobody showed up. the order was then issued. in march, the order of abatement was mailed to the bank of new

york. the owner claims that mail should have gone to her and not the bank of new york. she made repairs, is that true? >> yes. the invoice and reinspection took place. it was repaired within less than 10 days. commissioner murphy: so she made the repairs as soon as she was aware of them and then mailed it to the housing inspector in july. for some reason, the inspector did not verify those repairs until october. commissioner lee: i think you just made your case that the board of abatement went to the wrong party. commissioner murphy: yes, so i see the present owner -- commissioner walker: and that is

what we are looking at. i feel the same way. i feel the order of abatement went to the wrong person, and we did not know. it is not because we made an error. we relied on information in our system, but another entity in our system had not updated it to give us proper, immediate ownership. so the issue for me is a fair notice opportunity. that is what we're looking at, not the facts of anything else. that is for another day commissioner murph. commissioner murphy: if we want to point the finger at anybody, it would be the assessor's office. commissioner lee: why don't we take public comment now. any public comment?