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A Florida man who bought his home in foreclosure was slapped with over $1 million in fines due to code violations committed by the previous owner that the city sat on for 10 years.
Denny Dorcey spent the last decade renovating and maintaining the property, keeping it up to snuff while he put his own flair on it, according to WSVN.
“I’m holding on to a little bit of the 70s that I enjoyed when I was a kid,” the classic car enthusiast said.
Dorcey claimed he was told there were no fines or liens to face when he purchased the foreclosed home in Oakland Park.
However, a letter from the city shattered that assurance.
“The letter said that I owe the city over $1 million for code violation fines from the time before I bought the house,” Dorcey told the outlet.
“It’s like having a bomb dropped on me. I just couldn’t believe it.”
The City of Oakland Park stated that he was responsible for $1,097,400 in fines tied to four minuscule violations committed by the previous owner.
The violations, including overgrown weeds on the property and trash in the carport, were never taken care of and filed away for years, accumulating further penalties without Dorcey’s knowledge.
The handyman called the city and claimed there must have been some error and that there was no way he could pay off the colossal fines.
Dorcey said city officials told him he needed to negotiate a settlement with the collection agency.
However, the city soon provided clarity on the substantial fines he received and swiftly took action to resolve the matter once WSVN reached out to them.
Dorcey’s home was not “brought into compliance” by the prior owners before it was foreclosed on in 2010, Oakland Park said in a statement to the outlet.
The city claimed they were never informed that the home was foreclosed before Dorcey became the new owner.
“Government agencies do not have to notify a new owner about the fines, allowing them to grow,” legal expert Howard Finkelstein told WSVN.
“But in this case, the city cannot do this to Dorcey because he bought the property in foreclosure and that wiped out any existing liens and fines that the city had.”
As a result, the city dropped the seven-figure fine against Dorcey, and the lien was wiped.
Law abiding citizens slapped with outrageously high fines for minor issues they are unaware of happen occasionally.
In May, a California mother was fined a whopping $88,000 after her kids mistakenly collected clams on the beach without a fishing license, thinking they were picking up seashells.
The Department of Fish and Wildlife confronted the mother of five, told her that her kids were collecting the clams without a license, and issued her a ticket.
