California governor Edmund G. Brown signed into law ""a bill"":http://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=201120120AB2314 to help combat neighborhood blight, state attorney general ""Kamala Harris"":http://www.oag.ca.gov/ announced Monday.
[IMAGE]The billâ€"AB 2314â€"gives new homeowners additional time to fix any code violations in a home before local agencies move in to enforce the codes. It also extends indefinitely an existing provision that requires the owner of a foreclosed property to maintain the property.
[COLUMN_BREAK]""We need solutions to the problem of blight which threatens the health and safety of California communities hit hardest by the mortgage crisis,"" said Wilmer Carter (D-Rialto), assemblymember and the bill's author. ""AB 2314 will ensure that local jurisdictions continue to have the tools to prevent and fight neighborhood blight due to foreclosures.""
The new law is part of Harris' California Homeowners Bill of Rights, a series of bills designed to extend reforms first negotiated in the national mortgage settlement. Two previous bills ""were signed into law"":http://dsnews.comarticles/california-homeowner-bill-of-rights-signed-into-law-2012-07-11 in July.
Other components of the Homeowners Bill of Rights are pending in the legislature. They include provisions that would enhance law enforcement responses to mortgage and foreclosure fraud and grant Harris the ability to convene a special multi-jurisdictional grand jury when necessary.
Another bill that would grant protections to tenants in foreclosed homes is currently awaiting action by the governor.