Like many inner city neighborhoods, the area which Greater Greenmount Community Association represents has too many structures that have been all but abandoned by their owners. To help rectify this blight, on April 30, 2013 GGCA along with five other community associations filed a lawsuit in the Circuit Court for Baltimore City against an out-of-state owner of long-vacant, uninhabitable, and nuisance properties.

The suit, which utilizes the Community Bill of Rights (Real Property 14-123), was filed by the Community Law Center, Inc. Venable, LLP serves as pro bono co-counsel, along with University of Maryland Francis King Carey’s School of Law’s Community Justice Clinic.

“The lawsuit challenges the practice of purchasing vacant properties at tax sale and leaving them for dead with unaddressed City code violations,” explained Kristine Dunkerton, Executive Director of Community Law Center.