6 THE QUEENS COURIER • JULY 18, 2019 FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM
Lessons Learned
While On The Beat
By Eric L. Adams
Protecting Homeowners
When I bought my first house,
where I still reside today, I felt a
mix of pride of fear. Homeownership
is a tremendous privilege and
responsibility – I had scrimped and
saved to get to this point, but I knew
that many challenges, financial and
otherwise, still lay ahead.
Making a house into a home is a
process that often takes several years.
Some people undertake ambitious
floor-to-ceiling renovations, while
others are comfortable with adding
a few personal touches but leaving
everything else intact. But it is a
labor of love – we make a home
because we are investing in our
future. We envision settling down,
raising a family, and growing old in
a place we call home.
Even with the effort we put into
building a home, homeowners –
particularly in Brooklyn - are under
increasing stress today. Some have
fallen behind on their mortgage
payments, others have lost their
homes altogether. Foreclosures
in Kings County last year reached
their highest level since the housing
bubble burst. And on top of that,
a new epidemic of deed fraud
has hit vulnerable homeowners
in gentrifying neighborhoods,
accelerating displacement and
leaving many homeless.
The kicker? The City may
unintentionally be playing a role.
The Third Party Transfer
program (TPT) allows the City to
foreclose on “distressed” properties
and hand them over to developers
to fix up and rent out at affordable
prices. The program began in 1996,
and is administered through the
Department of Housing Preservation
and Development.
In theory, it sounds like a
good idea. Using all the tools at
our disposal to restore properties
that have fallen into disrepair and
increase affordable housing stock
are noble goals. But the reality is
much more complicated. Despite
the City’s best intentions, TPT seems
to be doing more harm than good.
Often, the City deems properties
“distressed” over something as
trivial as an unpaid water bill.
In November of 2018, after hearing
from multiple people and sitting
down with stakeholders throughout
the borough that had firsthand
experience with the program, I wrote
a letter with Council Member Robert
Cornegy to the Mayor outlining our
concerns. We communicated our
belief that TPT had unfortunately
become tainted by fraud, and that
homeowners were being stripped
of their equity without the proper
recourse. We also demanded that the
City, State, and Federal government
conduct a “full-scale, forensic audit”
into the program.
Eric L. Adams
Our concerns turned out to be
justified. In March of this year,
Brooklyn Supreme Court Justice
Mark Partnow ruled against the
City and restored properties to
six homeowners who had their
properties seized through the TPT
program. In his decision, Justice
Partnow wrote, “While the Third
Party Transfer Program was
intended to be a beneficial program,
an overly broad and improper
application of it that results in the
unfair divestiture of equity in one’s
property cannot be permitted.”
There is still a lot of work to be
done. In July, the City Council held
a hearing on the TPT program, and
our office submitted testimony. In
the testimony, we reiterated our
call for a full-scale investigation,
and urged the Council to pass Public
Advocate Jumaane Williams’ bill
imposing a two-year moratorium
on the program until we could
implement the necessary reforms
and strengthen oversight.
In the coming weeks and months,
we plan to roll out an ambitious,
comprehensive agenda formulated with
the input of experts and advocates that
combats housing theft and rein in the
excesses of TPT. I am also encouraging
the Governor to sign S1688, a bill the
legislature passed in the most recent
session that would return stolen
properties to their original owners.
After all the time spent making
a house a home, it is almost
unimaginable that it could be taken
away from you over arrears or a
bureaucratic error. Unfortunately, that
is how TPT is currently structured. We
have an obligation to homeowners
throughout Brooklyn and the City to
ensure the homes they spend years
cultivating remain in their hands.
Eric L. Adams is borough
president of Brooklyn. He served 22
years in the New York City Police
Department (NYPD), retiring at the
rank of captain, as well as represented
District 20 in the New York State
Senate from 2006 until his election as
borough president in 2013.
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