I understand that it not directly relates to you , but really needs your support.

It can come to your neighborhood !

Sleepy Hollow, NY wants to fine local property owners if their space is vacant for more than 60 days.

If passed, this law would:

Require registration of all vacant buildings

Charge owners escalating fees and fines

Demand “plans for reuse” and mandatory inspections

They don’t understand that being without a tenant isn’t a crime—it’s part of owning property.

Please email and say “NO” to:

pmccarthy @. sleepyhollowny. org

Insurance wants to know if the place is vacant and then charge more because of it. I guess the town decided to get a piece of that pie as well.

Advertise the place as coming soon instead of vacant. Plug timers in the wall and plug lamps in them. Send empty envelopes to this address to the "tenant".

We all know why they are doing this.

In Los Angeles it's much worse. From 2/1/2020 thru 3/1/2024 a Londlord/owner couldn't evict someone for non-payment of rent.

Then because of the fires, no one could evict anyone effected by the fires from 1/1/2025 thru July 29, 2025.

If a tenant moved out you could only raise rents 10%. So my 27 year long tenant died. I re-rented the place to a fire victom. Current market rents were $2,500 plus a $2,500 deposit. I let this Star Wars actor have it for his kids for $1,500 a month with no deposit.

Then the city enacted a law for anti gouging rents. Retroactive. So I was fined and ordered to pay a $10,000 penalty. I protested. So the City raised the fines for charging more than a 10% increase to $50,000.

I protested this also. In court, Dreamworks, Lucas Productions and Disney testified that the Star Wars dad made over $3,000,000 last year and could easily pay the $1,500 a month, that's $1,000 under market. I still was ordered to pay the $10,000 fine.

All of that is too much work.

Send me a lease for a dollar a year and I will rent it.

It’s a small village, with population just 10,000.

Building inspector can just walk and see empty space.

Also, “friendly” neighbors can report vacant property.

We have a couple empty storefronts empty for number of years. Yes, it is eyesore, but I don’t believe village should double dipping to the owners pockets. We are paying taxes on it.

They want owner to register an empty property, and fine for not doing that. But after registering, they want to do annual inspections, charge a fee, have $2,000,000 in insurance with village name added, and have another $15,000 bond!

It’s not only for stores, but empty houses, offices, and even vacant lots.

At the meeting it was only me, who was against it.

The majority was enthusiastically supportive with one lady telling that charge for vacant land was to low and need to be higher!

My head is spinning!

I don’t want to be back in the USSR!

RB [TN] , no I don’t have any vacancies.

My places are all rented and in good shape.

I just don’t like the idea when government is controlling private property.

It took me six months to rent commercial unit before Covid (with four months free rent after signing a contract).

I don’t believe it fair to pay any fees in addition of paying taxes.

Being from Soviet Union, I am more sensitive to this nonsense.

If I store the remaining half gallon of paint I use in my rentals in the building is it still vacant?

Currently rented to H Horseman if they ask.

It’s not only residential. They are more pushy about commercial properties, storefronts, or even vacant lots.

I don’t have any problems, at least now.

I am against this law in general.

My city has this. I found out because some neighbor reported to the city that my house was vacant, and that a group of kids in neighborhood had been messing with it. Now, I knew about the kids, had been working to build a relationship with them; none of the other neighbors were doing that. Other neighbors were just gossiping about the new family that moved in, nobody bothering to be a 'good neighbor' and get to know the new family.

I spent a lot of time, and small amount of money to file paperwork, explain my situation. Had a court date, which was stressing me out greatly. Finally, two days before my court date, I received a phone call from the city stating my appeal was accepted. I still had a date to 'get the house finished', and the city wanted inspections on everything, but I didn't have to pay the $264 fine. (might be wrong on the exact amount) The fine showed up on my tax bill, but a revised tax bill went out without the fine.

Saw that later a city inspector did a drive-by, and declared the property was occupied. It's not, but, it never did look unoccupied, in fact, it is one of the best -kept houses on the street; it was the stoopid neighbor thinking they were 'helping' by filing an online report with the city saying 'someone should tell me about the kids bothering my house'. Um... yeah, I knew and had that well in hand.

Whatever just happened to leaving a note on my door, or stopping by to chat when I was there to work. Why they gotta get the city involved? Idjits! I made sure all the 'helpful' neighbors on that street knew about all the crapola I went through because of their feeding information to the government. I also make sure all those neighbors see I go out of my way to be friendly with the family with all the kids who attract other kids. The kids know me now, my place is left alone. The kids and I wave and say hello whenever I see them.

Most of the city-involved fines, inspections are complaint-driven. The city officials do not go around looking, but rather just respond when a complaint is made. The fun thing is, the city also turns the tables and takes a hard look at the person making the complaint, as often these kinds of things are retaliatory. One of my neighborhoods went through a while thing when somebody made a complaint to the city. I wasn't involved, and my property was up to snuff, but the busy-body neighbor next door gave me an earfull whenever he could. I also signed up to receive the city ... ummm... notices? ....complaints?..... by email. I was able to sign up for all complaints within so many feet of my property, which is how I saw the original complaint about my house being unoccupied, and the recent drive-by declaring my property occupied.