A Florida man who bought his home in foreclosure has been fined more than $1 million for code violations by the previous owner that the city ignored for 10 years.
According to , Denny Dorsey has spent the past 10 years renovating and maintaining the property, adding his own personal flair to keep it in tip-top condition. WSVN.
“I'm holding on to a little bit of the '70s that I enjoyed as a kid,” said the classic car enthusiast.
Dorsey claimed that when he bought a foreclosed home in Oakland Park, he was told there would be no fines or liens.
But a letter from the city shattered that guarantee.
“The letter said I owed the city more than $1 million in fines for code violations even before I bought the house,” Dorsey told the outlet.
“It felt like a bomb had been dropped. I just couldn't believe it.”
The City of Oakland Park announced that the former owner will be responsible for paying $1,097,400 in fines related to four minor violations.
Violations such as overgrown weeds on the property and trash in the carport went unaddressed for years, accumulating more fines without Dorsey's knowledge.
The handyman called the city and claimed that some mistake must have been made and there was no way to pay the hefty fine.
Dorsey said city officials told him he would need to negotiate a settlement with the collection agency.
However, the city quickly clarified the hefty fine he received and took steps to resolve the issue as soon as WSVN contacted him.
Dorsey's home was not “in compliance” by its previous owner until it was foreclosed on in 2010, Oakland Park said in a statement to the media.
The city claimed it was not informed that the home was in foreclosure before Dorsey became the new owner.
Legal expert Howard Finkelstein told WSVN that “the fines could be magnified because the agency is not required to notify the new owner of the fine.”
“But in this case, the city cannot do this to Mr. Dorsey because he purchased the property in foreclosure, thereby extinguishing any existing liens and penalties held by the city.”
As a result, the city dropped the seven-figure fine against Dorsey and the lien was canceled.
Law-abiding citizens sometimes face exorbitantly large fines for minor issues of which they are unaware.
In May, a California mother was fined a whopping $88,000 for mistakenly collecting clams from the beach without a fishing license, thinking her children were collecting shells.
The Fish and Wildlife Service confronted the mother of the five children, told her the children were collecting clams without a permit, and ticketed her.
