Garden Grove Ordinance Requires Trustee to Ensure Property is Maintained

In 2008, the City of Garden Grove, California, passed a ”Registration and Maintenance of Abandoned Property Ordinance” (Ordinance # 2737; Garden Grove Municipal Code, Title 8, Chapter 84 commencing with § 8.84.010). The Garden Grove Ordinance is substantially similar to Ordinances adopted by the County of Riverside and numerous other cities and counties. UTA has extensively discussed these ordinances at its annual conference, local dinner meetings and in articles in the UTA Quarterly and on the UTA Website.

Recently, the Garden Grove Police Department has sent to trustees and beneficiaries a letter stating that the City’s ordinance requires that “If the property is not vacant, but is the subject of foreclosure proceedings, you [beneficiary or trustee] must perform a monthly inspection to ensure that property continues to be occupied. If any inspection reveals that the property is no longer occupied, you must then register the property with the City. During foreclosure proceedings … both the trustee and the beneficiary, are responsible to ensure the property is registered with the City and is kept maintained and secured.”

Failure to comply with complaints on the maintenance of the property received by the city within 21 days of notice from the city result in re-inspection fees to the trustee of $70 and $100 for each subsequent inspection “until compliance is gained.”

According to UTA’s Corporate Counsel, Phil Adleson: “The problem with the Garden Grove Ordinance (as with most of the similar city and county ordinances) is that it imposes duties on trustees that are preempted by state law and the ordinance is probably constitutionally vague.” In the very near future, UTA’s Legal Resources Committee and its legal counsel will address this apparent escalation in enforcement of the Garden Grove ordinance and be making recommendations to UTA’s Board. Hopefully, the problems with the Garden Grove Ordinance (as with other cities and counties with similar ordinances) can be resolved through a dialog with the cities and counties. Otherwise, UTA may have to consider pursuing, with member support, litigation against the city as it recently did in its successful challenge to the City of Richmond Ordinance.

If you receive a citation from Garden Grove or from any other city or county, you generally have a very short time period in which to appeal (often 10 days). Appeals of these types of citations are very simple and generally inexpensive but they preserve your right to challenge the ordinance individually. With advice of counsel, consider an immediate appeal of any such citation and immediately contract UTA through its Executive Director, Richard Meyers, or through its legal counsel, Phil Adleson.

Read the Garden Grove Ordinance

Read the letter from the Garden Grove Police Department