It seems to fit the perfect definition of Catch-22: Local governments across the Las Vegas area are playing hard ball to get owners and lenders to repair and sell foreclosed properties quickly, but property owners are saying that the tough tactics merely add to the costs of the properties once fixed and render them less likely to be sold.

It is certainly no secret that Nevada has been hit extremely hard by the current recession, and nowhere has that body blow been felt more severely than in the realm of homes being lost to foreclosure. A byproduct of that woe is that abandoned properties are often not maintained adequately, resulting in communal eyesores and plummeting property values for surrounding properties. Says Kevin Brame, North Las Vegas deputy fire chief: "If you are living next to a home in default and people walk away, it sits there for months and all the vegetation dies and trash collects and it falls into deterioration."

Clark County now requires owners to submit a plan for fixing properties that have fallen into disrepair. Failure to timely do so can bring a fine of $1,000 per day. If a fine is not paid, the County can place a lien on a property.

Henderson presently has about 4,000 homes in the foreclosure process. Alan Ellis, its inspection services manager, says, "When you start liening houses, it discourages people from buying houses." Ellis thinks that banks generally do not want to take possession of a property after an owner is evicted, as part of a strategy for not having to take responsibility and pay homeowners association fees.

Bill Uffelman, president of the Nevada Bankers Association, says that if local governments become too aggressive with fines, it could "destroy the reasonableness" of the foreclosure process.

It's complicated. The bottom line is that foreclosure is a serious issue in the current economy, and a solution is highly dependent on many factors, including, centrally, job creation and sustainability.

Related Resource: lasvegassun.com "Focusing on foreclosures" July 26, 2010