When Morgan Voke bought a run-down house with a leaky roof and the vacant lot next door at tax deed sales, he figured he’d renovate the properties, improving a small pocket of the historic Black neighborhood of East Altamonte.

But Voke was later stunned to learn the properties — now combined into one lot — carried tens of thousands of dollars in code-enforcement liens after years of neglect by the previous owners. That bill was now his. This came after Voke and his business partner paid $120,602 to buy the shabby properties.

“There’s got to be a better way,” he said. “It discourages anyone to buy any of these dilapidated houses — dilapidated properties — and fix them up because they come with liens.”

In the end, Seminole commissioners unanimously agreed Tuesday to waive the remaining $24,781 in liens after an appeal from Voke.

Still, county leaders acknowledged a longtime problem nearly every local government struggles with: What to do with vacant or ramshackle properties that become a continual drag on nearby home values or the quality of a neighborhood.

Local governments typically impose liens on property owners as a penalty if they refuse to clean up their mess. But should those liens become the responsibility of a new owner who wants to renovate or rebuild?

In many cases, the liens accumulate to more than the property’s value. In Voke’s case, the four liens totaled $145,383, but the assessed value of the properties was $137,000. After he bought the land and structure from Seminole County at  tax deed sales for $120,602 — the county had seized the properties because of the previous owner’s failure to pay taxes — his purchase price went to reduce the liens values and pay associated fees, but there was still more than $24K in liens left over.

In other cases, the owners are long dead and family members living elsewhere may not realize there’s a deteriorating structure accumulating code-enforcement liens.

Voke and others say requiring a new owner to pay off existing liens impedes their efforts to fix and clean up the property and improve neighborhoods.

“That doesn’t help to get the property to a place where it benefits the neighborhood,” Commissioner Amy Lockhart said. “Because then everybody will walk away from it. Investors will not even consider purchasing the property. And it will sit there and continue to be a nuisance to the neighborhood.”

As Seminole officials currently work on updating the county’s code-enforcement procedures — a process that should be completed by the end of the year — Lockhart and other commissioners said it should be easier for someone who purchases or acquires a dilapidated property with the intent of improving it to get a break on the liens or have them reduced by county staff. In the long run, it will help improve neighborhoods dotted with vacant, ramshackle structures.

“I think our staff needs to have the flexibility to determine if the lien reduction request is from the person who was part of creating the problem or are they part of the solution,” she said. County staff initially denied Voke’s request for a reduction in the liens, forcing him to appeal to the county commission.

But Commissioner Lee Constantine said not all liens should be waived.

“There has got to be a reasonable solution,” Constantine said. “We have to have a carrot-and-a-stick approach with liens to get property owners to comply. But we also have to encourage improvements.”

The county has roughly $55 million in outstanding code-enforcement liens from scores of property owners who for years have failed to come into compliance with county regulations. These include properties littered with garbage, tall grass, filthy pools, tarped roofs, overgrown vegetation or structures built without proper permits.

One of the most notorious cases is a home on Alpine Street owned by Alan Davis, Seminole’s so-called “Junk Man” who for more than a quarter century has thumbed his nose at the county’s codes. He’s racked up nearly $5.5 million in fines and liens for unpermitted construction, overgrown vegetation and junk littering his front yard — including broken down cars, rusty bicycles, appliances and a statue of human buttocks county officers deemed “objectionable matter.”

The home had an assessed value of $141,422 in 2024. But the county can’t seize Davis’ home because he has paid the property taxes on the homesteaded house, according to records from the Seminole County Property Appraiser’s Office.

Only when a property owner fails to pay property taxes for several years can it be sold at public auction to pay back the delinquent real estate taxes. But then, the new owner who cast the winning bid is saddled with the liens.

In Voke’s case, he and his business partner purchased the run-down house on Williams Street in November 2023 at a tax deed sale for $102,500.

Five months later, he bought the adjacent lot near the railroad tracks for $18,102 after cleaning the property of trash and weeds more than six feet high. He also discovered a portion of the house was built decades earlier on the adjacent property, so he combined the lots.

After spending tens of thousands of dollars renovating the properties — including the home — Voke applied for reduction or elimination of the remaining lien amount. But county staff denied his request because Seminole regulations state “the lien should have been considered in reaching a purchase price” at the tax deed auction.

Voke argued he “rectified” the violations on the house and “cleaned up the vacant property next door.” In effect, he rid the neighborhood — which has been dotted with unkempt and vacant properties for decades — of an eyesore.

“There should be an easier road with the county,” he said regarding liens while standing in front of the home on a recent morning. “I’m all about: Let’s make everything look good not just for me but for everybody.

“I totally get that if someone is malicious or lazy and not wanting to clean up their property. That’s a different story. There needs to be some sort of case by case evaluation.”

Commissioner Chair Jay Zembower agreed the code enforcement process should be streamlined to make it easier for a new owner to quickly improve a rundown property.

“What we’re really trying to do is get things cleaned up quickly, make sure it’s brought up to code, and prevent it from being an eyesore,” he said.