The Third Party Transfer Program: A Tool Buffalo Can Use to Reduce Property Abandonment

Abstract

Buffalo needs an effective program to quickly fight abandonment. In the past twenty years, Buffalo’s tax-foreclosure abandonment rate has increased. If the City does not sell these abandoned properties or at it’s an annual In-rem auction, then it generally takes title to them, selling a small number and putting the rest on the City’s long demolition list. This leaves the City to maintain many unsold dilapidated properties that drain City resources and decrease property value in their neighborhoods. The current processes are slow and do not adequately address the abandonment problem.