ST. LOUIS – A Missouri law aims to fight blight and help people affected by nuisance properties in the City of St. Louis.

Missouri Statute 82.1025 allows property owners within 1,200 feet of a nuisance property or a neighborhood organization representing affected property owners in the cities of St. Louis and Kansas City to take legal action.

The statute allows applicable property owners and organizations to sue offending nuisance property owners for damages, including losses in their property value due to blight.

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The Marina Villa Neighborhood Association, representing south St. Louis residents, filed a lawsuit in June to address a nuisance property along Salena Street. The lawsuit claims that the St. Louis Department of Public Safety structurally condemned the property after several code violations, including cracked walls, damaged windows, interior debris and inoperable water service.

The lawsuit seeks to have a receiver take temporary possession of the property and decrease nuisance conditions.

According to St. Louis Magazine, neighborhood advocacy programs within St. Louis filed around 50 lawsuits a year similar to the one filed by the Marina Villa Neighborhood Association.

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The statute allows for these lawsuits if the plaintiff has provided a written notice of nuisance conditions for at least 60 days without action to the property. According to the Missouri statute the notice must be sent through certified mail to the tenant or occupant of the nuisance property or the property owner last associated with the address.

The notice must include:

• Description of the nuisance

• Date the nuisance was discovered

• Property address and location of the nuisance

• Description of relief sought

If the notice is undeliverable via mail, the affected property owner or organization must have proof that a copy of the notice was posted on the property and a sworn affidavit of the notice being delivered.

In the case a plaintiff wins, a judge may force an offender to clean up the property, compensate eligible parties or lose the property to a receiver.

According to the statue, eligible parties looking to file a lawsuit over nuisance properties do not necessarily need proof of damages, just proof that a nuisance property and a notice of such property exist.

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