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A successful health & safety receivership restores order to a long-neglected residential property. After years of unresolved code violations and deteriorating conditions, a single family home in Fresno is now secure, cleaned out, and poised for sale—thanks to the use of a health and safety receivership.

While there is no specific health and safety receivership statute in Arizona, courts have shown flexibility in using existing receivership laws to protect public safety.

In August 2023, the City of Citrus Heights filed a petition in Sacramento County Superior Court to appoint a receiver for a severely substandard single-family home. This case highlights how cities across California, Arizona, Nevada, and beyond can use Health & Safety Receiverships to address dangerous, abandoned, or uninhabitable properties that threaten public health and neighborhood stability.

Municipalities of all sizes across the United States grapple with health and safety issues related to real property. The challenges and dangers posed by nuisance properties are generally similar, as are the consequences of neglecting them. However, the approach taken by each state to address these issues varies. For example, the Health and Safety Receivership remedy in California differs from the remedy in Nevada or in Arizona.

Nationwide commercial property foreclosures are up significantly since 2023. According to a recent report released by ATTOM in February of this year, the end of 2024 saw a significant year-over-year increase with 725 commercial properties going into foreclosure. California led the charge with 257, which amounted to a 90% increase from the previous month and a 104% jump compared to December of 2023. With foreclosure comes the risk of a property becoming vacant or abandoned. This can eventually cause problems for cities, who run the risk of those vacant commercial properties becoming taken over by squatters or converting into hotbeds for crime.

Clark County officials have presented a transformative bill to Nevada state lawmakers aimed at combating the alarming negligence of landlords who fail to address dangerous living conditions, endangering tenant health and safety. The newly proposed Assembly Bill 211 amends existing language and revises provisions related to substandard properties, advocating for the appointment of a health and safety receiver in certain situations.