Blog

Time sure does fly. Here at Griswold Law (and in life), things have been quite busy. I was unpleasantly surprised to realize it has been close to a year since the last article. My motivation is renewed and the published articles will follow.

Richardson "Red" Griswold of Griswold Law was nominated by an Orange County city, and appointed by the Superior Court judge under CA Health & Safety Code section 17980, et seq., to act as a receiver over a single family home that had fallen into serious disrepair with multiple and severe health and safety, building, and other municipal code violations.

Here on the Griswold Law Blog, we use the terms “Health & Safety Code Receiver” and “Real Property Receiver” quite a bit in our articles about the different types of situations where a court-appointed receiver can provide a remedy for problematic structures (i.e. abandoned properties or slumlord-owned properties). However, receivers can be appointed by the Court to rehab non-residential properties as well. Two example scenarios are explained below:

Abandoned properties hardly stay “abandoned” for long. If a property is uninhabited, it’s susceptible to takeover. Vandals, taggers, squatters and transients can move in and out, staying for the night—or for longer. A once-empty house can transform into a house covered in graffiti and trash in a matter of weeks. Vermin could move in as well and spread throughout the neighborhood. Abandoned properties make neighborhoods less safe and drag down property values for the other houses on the block.

The Online Etymology Dictionary reports that the word “slumlord” came into popular use in 1953, but it derived as a portmanteau of “slum landlord,” which had been used as early as 1893. Needless to say, slumlords’ neglect is not a new problem.

The Mayo Clinic defines hoarding as “the excessive collection of items, along with the inability to discard them,” and notes the following characteristics as signs and symptoms: cluttered living spaces, inability to discard items, acquiring unneeded or seemingly useless items (including trash), excessive attachment to possessions, and discomfort letting others touch or borrow possessions, among others.