{"id":343679,"date":"2025-10-30T17:59:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:59:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/343679\/"},"modified":"2025-10-30T17:59:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-30T17:59:18","slug":"neglected-houston-homes-pile-up-as-city-fails-to-use-key-probate-resource","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/343679\/","title":{"rendered":"Neglected Houston homes pile up as city fails to use key probate resource"},"content":{"rendered":"

A year after KPRC 2 Investigates<\/a> revealed a Harris County office created to help move abandoned residential properties through probate, we found the City of Houston has rarely utilized the service. In Oct. 2024, the county created the Office of the Public Probate Administrator.<\/p>\n

\u201cI believe that the office was created to kind of be a solution to a couple different things,\u201d said Brandon Cofield, the county\u2019s Public Probate Administrator. \u201cThis office has a unique ability to kind of serve, as I say, like a universal heir or administrator of last resort when there\u2019s no known or suitable heirs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Violation notices on a Harris County abandoned property. (Click2Houston)<\/p>\n

Under Chapter 455 of the Texas Estates Code, the court\u2019s can appoint a Public Probate Administrator to assume temporary control of a property<\/a>. Cofield said this allows his office to track down heirs, address liens and taxes, arrange repairs, and, if needed, prepare properties for sale.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt helps a lot because now there\u2019s a point of contact. Once you have somebody appointed as a representative, now if there\u2019s notice requirements, if there is liens, taxes, all of that stuff can come to a point person instead of it just going to the ether,\u201d said Cofield.<\/p>\n

Yet, in the year his office has been in operation Cofield said the city has only forward two properties. Cofield said both properties were forwarded by Councilmember Amy Peck<\/a>. <\/p>\n

One involves a Spring Branch property on Lynnview.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe always have problems, like in the streets you always see rats,\u201d said Raul Aguirre, who lives across from this home.<\/p>\n

An obituary shows the owner died in May of 2024 and residents of the neighborhood said the home has since attracted homeless people, who\u2019ve broken windows looking for shelter.<\/p>\n

Dumping in a Harris County abandoned property. (Click2Houston)<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s ridiculous, I\u2019ve been waiting for them to knock it down. I was like, it\u2019s been past time,\u201d said Aguirre. <\/p>\n

When 2 Investigates<\/a> visited the property we saw faded violation notices from the city, as well as piles of trash inside the home. Cofield said in Dec. the city filed a motion to appoint his office to investigate the case. Cofield got the weeds knocked back, looked for heirs and as of Sept. the sale of the home is pending. <\/p>\n

Cofield said he can get this entire process down to about 4-months.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it\u2019s a win-win for everybody. If you get the information to this office, then we can kind of take it from there on the probate side and at least get answers for your constituents,\u201d said Cofield.<\/p>\n

Harris County Public Probate Administrator Brandon Cofield and KPRC 2 Investigates Robert Arnold (Click2Houston)<\/p>\n

Cofield said he was finally able to speak with someone in the city\u2019s Public Works Department<\/a> last week and was told they are now trying to set-up a system to alert his office when an inspector encounters a vacant property with a deceased owner.<\/p>\n

We only recently became aware of the existence of this office but have not had any dealings with it and have not had any contact with that office wherein anyone offered assistance or support. That may be due to the transition from DON (Dept. of Neighborhoods) to HPW (Houston Public Works). The City has only recently transitioned the handling of dangerous building demolition matters to HPW and we have been working to improve processes, add efficiencies, and adequately fund the volume of matters that have been on the docket,\u201c HPW Dir. Randy Macchi wrote in a statement to 2 Investigates. \u201dWe are always willing to partner with agencies that have a shared common objective, but without more information, including an understanding of how the OPP office works, and their processes, it is impossible to provide more information.”<\/p>\n

Members of the public cannot asked Cofield\u2019s office to get involved in cleaning up a derelict property. However, Cofield said residents can ask their respective councilmember to contact his office.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe way the statute provides is that information needs to come from either a funeral home, a housing facility, or a governmental entity,\u201d said Cofield. \u201cThe proper method is to go through your city councilmember or any sort of elected official to notify us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Damaged Harris County abandoned property. (Click2Houston)<\/p>\n

According to a city database obtained by 2 Investigates, there 1,806 residential properties either declared a dangerous building by the city, or have pending dangerous building code violations. Roughly half the properties in this database show problems have been pending a year or longer.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of illegal activity, drug use,\u201d said Independence Heights resident, Cynthia Brown about a vacant house next to her.<\/p>\n

The city\u2019s database shows the home on Westfield popped up on the city\u2019s radar in 2019 and is still a problem for Brown. <\/p>\n

\u201cWhen I\u2019m out mowing my yard, I\u2019m always careful over there because I\u2019m picking up needles and used condoms,\u201d said Brown. \u201cThey are shooting over there, so, I don\u2019t know what they\u2019re shooting at; as a matter of fact there\u2019s a bullet hole in my car porch.\u201d<\/p>\n

Macchi wrote in a statement to 2 Investigates the city has made changes to how it handles derelict properties.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe large backlog of cases is exactly why the City effectuated the transition from DON\u2014where these items were significantly underfunded\u2014to HPW. Under the Public Works umbrella, we are able to dedicate resources more effectively and with less duplication. In addition, process changes have been implemented to move matters forward faster, including recission of the Administrative Policy that required an internal panel to meet that would evaluate the necessity of abatement up to and including demolition,” Macchi wrote.<\/p>\n

Macchi also wrote the city allocated $20 million in fiscal year 2025 for the demolition of derelict properties. <\/p>\n

City Council was expected to vote this week on whether to budget an additional $50 million for demolition of derelict properties over the next few years, but the item was tagged. <\/p>\n

We will let you know what happens. <\/p>\n

Copyright 2025 by KPRC Click2Houston – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A year after KPRC 2 Investigates revealed a Harris County office created to help move abandoned residential properties…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":343680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[64462,169202,10882,169200,169199,6386,4345,46180,169201,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-343679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-abandoned","9":"tag-brandon-cofield","10":"tag-city-of-houston","11":"tag-dept-of-neighborhoods","12":"tag-derelict","13":"tag-harris-county","14":"tag-houston","15":"tag-houston-public-works","16":"tag-public-probate-administrator","17":"tag-texas","18":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115464422387154246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=343679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/343679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/343680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=343679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=343679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=343679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}