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The city Department of Codes and Inspections is dealing with maintenance and repair issues caused by about 22 New Jersey companies that are connected by a common real estate management firm and that over the past year have purchased about 40 properties without an in-person examination beforehand.
Twenty-one of the properties have code violations, with a total of 64 citations issued on 12 them so far, resulting in a total of $20,000 in fines being levied by a magisterial district judge and an additional $2,800 in unpaid city reinspection fees.
As required, the companies and their management firm have designated a local representative -- contractor Dylan Swires -- but they've repeatedly failed to provide the timely funding Swires needs to pay for materials to make repairs ordered by the city.
On Thursday, MDJ Ben Jones issued a pair of $1,000 fines at a hearing involving a pair of the properties, one on the 2000 block of Fourth Avenue and one on the 200 block of South Seventh Street.
Issues included missing smoke detectors, a broken window, an attic door and problems with a ceiling and a section of floor.
Calls to the property management firm that serves as intermediary with the owners often results in the firm failing to answer the phone, "refusing or dodging" Swires' requests for money to buy materials, reassurance that there's a plan to get the funding or a changing of the subject, Swires told the judge.
The firm sometimes asks him to request an extension from the judge, after extensions were previously given, and the subsequent deadlines weren't met, Swires said.
That kind of request is frustrating, according to Swires.
His arrangement with the management firm, and thus the companies it represents, requires that he receive money for the materials he needs, upon which he completes the maintenance work with his crew, which includes three employees, based on an estimate he's given the management group, according to Swires.
Swires was initially optimistic about his deal with the group, which he figured would help him expand his company's capabilities, and things went OK at first, he said.
"But then things came to a halt," he said.
At one point, Swires suggested that the property manager open an account at Lowe's, so there wouldn't be a holdup when work needed done, but the manager said "there were too many moving parts" to create such an account, Swires said.
He disagreed, but there's nothing he can do, he said.
The codes department has no problem with Swires, who has faithfully attended all hearings and inspections, according to codes Director Rebecca Brown.
He has a "good name" and doesn't want it besmirched by the situation, Swires said.
He's a carpenter who learned the trade at the Greater Altoona Career and Tech Center and during a couple years in the carpenter's union, and he's been doing such work since age 16, he said.
"I take pride in what I do," he stated.
The issues have arisen because the properties were purchased "sight unseen" and quickly, and many had violations already, and because there's been a persistent "lack of communication," Brown said.
Many of the violations are related to life safety, including a lack of smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, officials said.
Swires has paid for some of those out of his own pocket, he said.
The rental license for four of the properties have been revoked, Brown said.
Revocations result from uncorrected violations found during rental inspections; failure to appear for a rental inspection; unpaid property maintenance reinspection fees; uncorrected problems that the city is forced to abate; and unpaid rental registration fees, Brown said.
Each of the four properties has a different owner, so there has been no five-year suspension of an owner's rental license.
Those five-year suspensions are triggered only after an owner accumulates two rental license revocations.
About 15 of the properties are currently occupied, according to Swires.
Residents have left some of the properties, an official said.
Conversely, some were initially vacant, then rented to tenants without being repaired, Brown said.
The property purchases were generally preceded by a right-to-know request about property features, after which the city would receive notice of a transfer from the county, Brown said.
Most of the sales were private transactions -- not facilitated by a realtor, Brown said.
None were through tax sales.
Typically, when there are code issues with a new group of buyers, the buyers will be responsive and ultimately compliant, Brown said.
"The primary issue with this group is they are not responsive and not completing (all) repairs, but they're still renting the properties," Brown said.
Shortly after the issues began, Brown spoke with a member of the management group, explaining that the city "will not tolerate landlords renting properties in substandard conditions," Brown said.
The representative asked for leniency, saying that although they were long-time property managers in New Jersey, they were unfamiliar with practices in Altoona.
Brown told the representative that she didn't plan to be lenient.
When Brown suggested that it didn't make sense to continue buying properties, given that the ones they'd already bought had outstanding violations, the representative replied that the city couldn't prevent the group from continuing to buy such properties for investment, according to Brown.
Some of the properties "are extremely bad," Swires said.
The property manager has told him that he feels the city is "attacking" his firm, Swires said.
But the city's actions are nothing different from the norm, he said.
The property management group has conducted seminars on how to buy distressed properties, Brown said.
There are 15 or 16 "principals" among the ownership companies, most of which are limited liability companies, according to Brown.
Swires has met a couple of those principals, all of whom are from New Jersey, and was told they felt "blindsided" by the situation.
Swires is actually the second local representative that the New Jersey property manager has designated as its Altoona representative, Brown said.
The first had problems similar to the ones that Swires has encountered, Brown said.
Asked if he regretted entering into the arrangement with the New Jersey group, Swires said, "It's getting to that point."
"It's getting kind of messy," he added.
The Mirror left two voicemails with a representative from the management group and didn't get a response.
The Mirror also sent an email to the head of the management group and didn't get a response, but email service was unavailable at the Mirror, and across much of the country, on Thursday.
Mirror Staff Writer William Kibler is at 814-949-7038.