City sues owner of vacant Powers Street properties for $17K in unpaid inspection bills, fees

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This article was published 22/01/2024 (592 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The city has filed suit against another owner of long-vacant homes over unpaid inspection bills and fees.

The city’s lawyers filed a statement of claim in Manitoba Court of King’s Bench Thursday, naming Misah Kinfemichael Daba as defendant, seeking $17,082 in unpaid bills for two of his vacant properties on Powers Street in the William Whyte neighbourhood.

Daba has not yet filed a statement of defence.

Under the city’s vacant building bylaw, enforcement officers are granted powers to inspect such properties to enforce standards, which include maintaining boards blocking unwanted access via doors and windows and basic upkeep. They also issue an annual fee for the inspection.

The bylaw also allows the city to charge owners an annual empty building fee worth one per cent of the most recent property assessment, after the building in question has been inspected five or more times.

In Daba’s case, bylaw officers first inspected his property at 266 Powers in 2016, finding it vacant and allegedly decrepit, and have since issued six inspection invoices and three empty building fee invoices.

The city’s claim says the invoices have gone unpaid.

Further, the city said, it first inspected another of Daba’s properties at 274 Powers in 2012, finding it vacant and damaged by fire.

It issued six inspection invoices, from 2018 to 2021, and three fees for not complying with the Neighbourhood Livability bylaw over its allegedly dilapidated state.

All of the cash is past due, the city’s claim says.

The suit against Daba is the second filed by the city’s lawyers over vacant building inspection and empty building fees in as many weeks.

Speaking in general terms, Fort Rouge-East Fort Garry and property committee chair Coun. Sherri Rollins said courts actions over unpaid civic bills are not uncommon.

“We try as a city to make sure that people are paying their fines, and their fees associated with not paying taxes, and when they don’t — while there are a number of steps to appeal — it can end up in the Court of King’s Bench,” she said.

The city also recently moved to give its vacant building bylaw more teeth, as concerns over blight and fire dangers have grown in recent years.

City council voted early last year to amend the bylaw to bill owners for part of the costs of any firefighting on vacant properties, though some property owners have taken issue with the move.

erik.pindera@freepress.mb.ca