A Florida woman was fined $100,000 for a dirty pool and overgrown grass. When do fines become excessive?

USA Today – by Kristine Philips

DUNEDIN, Fla. – Kristi Allen read the letter and thought it had to be a scam.

It said she owed $92,600 in fines for overgrown vegetation and a stagnant swimming pool at a house she no longer owned. She must pay in two weeks, the letter said, and it hinted that she could be sued if she didn’t. Including interest charges and other fees, her debt swelled to $103,559, about twice her yearly income. 

Three months later, in late 2018, the city of Dunedin sued to collect, setting off another legal fight over how local governments use their power to impose heavy fines on citizens. What Allen, 38, a mother of two, thought had to be a scam turned into a nightmare she said could bankrupt her family.

“I haven’t woken up from it yet,” she said.

Dunedin, a small seaside city outside Tampa, cracks down on code violations, saddling homeowners with massive fines while its revenue grows. In 5½ years, the city has collected nearly $3.6 million in fines – sometimes tens of thousands at a time – for violating laws that prohibit grasses taller than 10 inches, recreational vehicles parked on streets at certain hours or sidings and bricks that don’t match.

The Supreme Court ruled in February that local governments can’t impose excessive fines. The decision is among the first constraints by the federal government on how much money cities and states can charge people for everything from speeding to overgrown lawns. But the court did not say what should be considered excessive, leaving local governments and residents with a question: How much is too much?

Fines are a reliable source of revenue for cash-starved cities, and they have become a big – and rapidly growing – business for local governments. States, cities and counties collected $15.3 billion in fines and forfeitures in 2016, according to the most recent financial records collected by the U.S. Census Bureau. That’s a 44% jump from a decade earlier.

The Supreme Court’s decision should be a warning for local governments that trap people in a never-ending cycle of debt, said Lisa Foster, a former Justice Department official who runs the Fines and Fees Justice Center, a New York-based advocacy group. But the ruling has not reined in some of the most aggressive practices, in Dunedin and elsewhere.

Dunedin officials declined to be interviewed but insisted through a spokesman that the fines they impose are neither excessive nor abusive. Dunedin’s code enforcement policies are meant to “protect the integrity of neighborhoods and the quality of the community,” spokesman Ron Sachs said.

City and county records show that at least 33 homeowners owed the city $20,000 or more in fines as of May. That tally does not include dozens of bank- and company-owned houses with hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of code violations.

In some cases, the fines seem to have more to do with aesthetics than public safety.

The city fined a man nearly $30,000 because of a “chronic” overgrown yard.

It fined a couple $31,000 for fixing their roof without a permit after a tree fell on it during a hurricane.

“They’re using a shotgun to kill a mouse,” said Bill Prescott, who was fined $43,000 because of an inoperative car and a pile of dried leaves in his front yard and plants that grew over the street. Prescott, who lives with his wife in Tallahassee, said he became ill last year and couldn’t make the long drive to Dunedin to maintain his second home. Fines of $250 a day piled up without his knowledge, Prescott said.

“It just leaves me scratching,” he said.

Read the rest here: https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/politics/2019/07/19/florida-city-hits-homeowners-massive-penalties-supreme-court-excessive-fines/1691703001/