§4753. Special liens; municipalities of four hundred thousand or more inhabitants

A.(1) The governing body of any municipality of four hundred thousand or more inhabitants may adopt ordinances to provide for control of vacant substandard buildings and the recordation of notices of any costs for extraordinary police, fire, sanitation, and health services which the municipality provides to the owners of vacant substandard buildings which have been deemed uninhabitable by the municipality, pursuant to ordinance adopted by the municipality.

(2)(a) Such ordinance shall establish standards for the notification of the owner of said property and an opportunity to be heard.

(b) Such standards shall include but not be limited to the requirement that if the owner is absent from the state or the parish in which the property is located or unrepresented therein, then notice shall be served upon an attorney at law appointed by the governing body of the municipality to represent the absentee.

B. Municipalities may pass ordinances to add costs for extraordinary police, fire, sanitation, and health services which the municipality provides to the owners of vacant substandard buildings which have been deemed uninhabitable by the municipality to the annual ad valorem tax bill of the property involved.

C.(1) Upon failure of any such property owner to pay the charges incurred pursuant to the ordinances authorized by this Section, the governing body may file a certified copy of said charges with the recorder of mortgages, and the same, when so filed and recorded, shall operate as a lien and privilege in favor of the municipality against the property on which a vacant substandard building deemed uninhabitable by the municipality is located.

(2) Such recordation shall constitute a privilege against the uninhabitable property; shall be subordinate in rank to a tax privilege, or a vendor's lien and privilege, or any other prior recorded lien, privilege, or mortgage; and shall not be considered as an ad valorem tax for purposes of the issuance of a tax certificate.

D. If within six months after the filing of the lien provided for in Subsection C of this Section, the property owner fails to pay such lien, the director of finance of the municipality, for the benefit of the municipality, shall have the authority to sell such property for the amount of all public liens operating against the property and any interest thereon. The procedure for notice, advertisement, and sale of the property shall be governed by the law applicable to the sale of real property for delinquent city taxes.

E.(1) For the purposes of this Section, the term "vacant substandard buildings" shall mean residential and commercial buildings which are determined to be:

(a) Unsafe, unsanitary, unfit for human habitation, or not provided with adequate egress;

(b) Which constitute a fire hazard or are otherwise dangerous to human life; or

(c) Which in relation to existing use constitute a hazard to safety or health by reason of inadequate maintenance, dilapidation, obsolescence, or abandonment for a period in excess of six months.

(2) However, "vacant substandard buildings" shall not be interpreted or construed to mean residential and commercial buildings which are under construction or which are in a substandard condition as a result of a natural disaster, an act of God, force majeure, a catastrophe, or such other occurrence over which the owner or owners have no control.

Acts 1984, No. 508, §1, eff. July 6, 1984; Acts 1984, No. 797, §1; Acts 1987, No. 475, §1.