Over ten thousand properties in the City of Birmingham have become unmarketable and, in turn, unusable because the properties are burdened by the piling on of various sorts of government-created liens (tax liens, weed liens, demolition liens, etc.) and/or have clouded titles. Over time, property owners lose interest in maintaining the property because the property becomes a financial liability, rather than an asset. As our neighborhoods accumulate more and more of these unmaintained, tax delinquent properties, our neighborhoods become overwhelmed with blight.
The Birmingham Land Bank Authority has the ability to clear these back taxes, municipal liens and assessments and the authority to institute quiet title actions on properties that are at least five years tax delinquent.
The Land Bank allows for the citizens to take ownership of and improve properties that were previously financially infeasible to acquire.
Every property that the land bank conveys to a new owner is a property that the City of Birmingham no longer has to maintain and one that generates revenue for the city. New owners are required to complete proposed development plans on properties that they acquire to reduce the blight that has inundated many of our neighborhoods.
We collaborate with citizens, non-profits, businesses, city departments and other agencies to empower our citizens, remove blight, increase property values and ultimately strengthen our neighborhoods by returning tax delinquent property back into productive use.
Visit the view properties page to see the thousands of properties available for acquisition through our programs. For more information about each of our programs and the application process, visit our programs page.