03/24/2025

House Bill 86

Lead Sponsors: Representative Steve Demetriou

Status: First hearing in House Development (March 5, 2025)

Description: The bill makes a variety of changes across the Revised Code regarding tax foreclosures and county land reutilization corporations ("land banks"). The bill:

• Requires members of the county board of revision who are also on the board of the county land bank or who are county commissioners to recuse themselves from any matters concerning the value of real property owned by the land bank or county.
  
  
• Permits counties to provide an affidavit describing the property, the charges due and unpaid, and stating that the amount has been certified to the county prosecutor as delinquent in order to prove that a tax foreclosure is warranted.
  
  
• Requires abandoned land, if not sold after the first foreclosure sale, to be forfeited to the state.
  • Current law allows it to be forfeited to the state, a political subdivision, or a land bank if it remains unsold after the first sale.
    
    
• Authorizes the county prosecutor, representing the county treasurer, to initiate foreclosure proceedings before the board of revision.
  
  
• Eliminates the authority for the board of revision to bring an action on its own initiatve.
  
  
• Requires that 10% of the total proceeds from a foreclosure auction sale be deposited into the county treasurer's and county prosecutor's Delinquent Tax and Assessment Fund and, if the county has a land bank, requires that an additional 10% be deposited to the land bank's fund.
  
  
• Allows a land bank or subdivision to inspect for environmental, health, or safety purposes, or for the presence of nuisance conditions, property that is subject to a tax foreclosure proceeding in which the property is determined to be abandoned.
  
  
• Eliminates the priority right of acquisition for municipalities and townships when a land bank acquires property in a non-tax foreclosure transaction.
  
  
• Provides that counties are not liable for damages or subject to equitable remedies in connection with property forfeited to the state.
  
  
• Allows community improvement corporations to bring a civil action to abate a public nuisance.

CCAO Position: No position (as of March 2025)