Ohio Wrote Grass Cutting and Board-Ups Into the Land Bank Statute

Across this series the statutes tend to impose a duty and leave the actual work unnamed - preserve, maintain, protect, with the scope left to argument. Ohio's land bank statute does the opposite. It lists the work. Cutting grass and weeds. Boarding up vacant or abandoned structures. Demolishing condemned structures. Those words are in the Revised Code as powers of a county land reutilization corporation, and the corporation has a dedicated funding stream to pay for them.

The Subsection That Names the Work

R.C. 1724.02(A)(10) gives a community improvement corporation power "to engage in code enforcement and nuisance abatement, including, but not limited to, cutting grass and weeds, boarding up vacant or abandoned structures, and demolishing condemned structures on properties that are subject to a delinquent tax or assessment lien, or property for which a municipal corporation or township has contracted with a county land reutilization corporation to provide code enforcement or nuisance abatement assistance."

Read the scope clause twice, because it is wider than the land bank's own inventory. The power reaches any property subject to a delinquent tax or assessment lien - whether or not the land bank owns it - and any property where a municipal corporation or township has contracted with the corporation for code enforcement or nuisance abatement assistance.

That makes an Ohio county land bank two things at once. It is an owner, holding tax-foreclosed inventory. And it is an abatement operator that cities and townships can contract with instead of running their own crews. R.C. 1724.02(A)(11) completes the arrangement: power "to charge fees or exchange in-kind goods or services for services rendered to political subdivisions and other persons or entities for whom services are rendered."

The section was last amended effective 31 March 2021 by House Bill 312 of the 133rd General Assembly.

Two and a Half Per Cent of Every Delinquent Dollar

Land banks elsewhere depend on grants and sale proceeds. Ohio gave its county land banks a share of the tax stream that creates their inventory in the first place.

R.C. 321.261(A) creates two funds in each county treasury - the treasurer's delinquent tax and assessment collection fund and the prosecuting attorney's equivalent - and directs that "two and one-half per cent of all delinquent real property, personal property, and manufactured and mobile home taxes and assessments collected by the county treasurer shall be deposited in the treasurer's delinquent tax and assessment collection fund," with the same percentage to the prosecutor's fund.

Subsection (A)(2) routes part of it to the land bank: with respect to any portion appropriated from the treasurer's fund "for the benefit of a county land reutilization corporation organized under Chapter 1724. of the Revised Code," the amounts allocated at the treasurer's direction to support the corporation "shall be paid out of such fund to the corporation upon a warrant of the county auditor."

There is a ceiling on accumulation rather than on spending: if the balance in either fund exceeds three times the amount deposited in the preceding year, the officer may direct the county auditor, on or before 20 October, to forgo the allocation in the ensuing year. The practical reading is that these funds are meant to be spent, not banked.

The Treasurer Is the Incorporator

That funding route makes more sense once you see who creates the land bank. R.C. 1724.04 provides that a county electing to implement the procedures in R.C. 5722.02 to 5722.15 may organize a county land reutilization corporation for the purpose of exercising the powers granted to a county under Chapter 5722 - and that "the county treasurer of the county for the benefit of which the corporation is being organized shall be the incorporator of the county land reutilization corporation."

The form of the articles is approved by resolution of the board of county commissioners, and when filed with the secretary of state they are submitted to the attorney general for examination. So an Ohio land bank is a non-profit corporation, incorporated by the county treasurer, approved by the commissioners, and funded from a share of the delinquent taxes the treasurer collects.

What the Corporation Is For

R.C. 1724.01(B)(2) states the purposes, and the second of them is the one that describes the holding period:

• Facilitating the reclamation, rehabilitation and reutilization of vacant, abandoned, tax-foreclosed or other real property within the county
• "Efficiently holding and managing vacant, abandoned, or tax-foreclosed real property pending its reclamation, rehabilitation, and reutilization"
• Assisting governmental entities and other nonprofit or for-profit persons to assemble, clear, and clear the title of such property in a coordinated manner
• Promoting economic and housing development in the county or region

"Pending its reclamation" is the whole of the maintenance problem in three words. A land bank's inventory is, by design, property nobody else wanted, held for an indefinite period before it is sold or demolished. R.C. 1724.02(A)(4) carries the corresponding powers - to "acquire, reclaim, manage, contract for the management of, construct or reconstruct, alter, repair, maintain, operate, sell, convey, transfer, lease, sublease, or otherwise dispose of" industrial plants, business establishments or housing.

How the Inventory Arrives

R.C. 5722.21 is one route in. The board of directors of a county land reutilization corporation may declare by resolution that it is in the public interest to acquire tax-delinquent real property within the county "for the public purpose of redeveloping the property or otherwise rendering it suitable for productive, tax-paying use," and where such a declaration is in effect the corporation may acquire eligible delinquent land.

The section defines eligible delinquent land as delinquent land or delinquent vacant land certified delinquent under R.C. 5721.03, excluding any certificate parcel as defined in R.C. 5721.30 - so parcels already sold as tax certificates are carved out. R.C. 1724.02 adds further routes, including power under subsection (A)(13) to purchase tax certificates at auction, by negotiated sale or from a third-party holder, and under subsection (A)(14) to be assigned a mortgage from a mortgagee in lieu of acquiring the property subject to it.

Those acquisition routes matter to a contractor because they predict condition. A parcel taken because nobody bid on it at a tax foreclosure has been vacant and unmaintained for years before the land bank's name goes on the deed.

What This Means If You Do the Work

• Grass cutting, board-ups and demolition are named in R.C. 1724.02(A)(10) as powers, so a land bank does not need to argue that the work is within its remit
• The power is not limited to land bank inventory - it reaches any property under a delinquent tax or assessment lien, and any property a city or township has contracted the land bank to abate
• That makes the county land bank a realistic single counterparty for abatement work across several municipalities at once
• The funding is a standing share of delinquent tax collections under R.C. 321.261, directed by the treasurer, rather than a grant that has to be won each year
• Funds are not meant to accumulate: a balance above three times the prior year's deposit lets the officer forgo the next allocation
• Scope the work to "pending its reclamation" - holding and managing, not improving; the statutory purpose in R.C. 1724.01(B)(2)(b) is efficient holding
• The county treasurer incorporated the corporation and directs its funding, which is usually the right place to understand how a particular county's land bank actually buys services

Ohio's other regimes over a building someone else owns are covered separately: the R.C. 3767.41 nuisance receiver and its first lien, why an Ohio tax certificate reimburses no preservation costs, a chapter 7 trustee and the Ohio homestead exemption, and an Ohio assignment for the benefit of creditors. On the municipal side see Columbus's vacant property registration and the wider Ohio registration landscape. Field capability is on our Ohio page, with the servicer view in the Ohio state guide.