Milwaukee Puts Slumlords On Notice For Unpaid Taxes, Building Code Fines

MILWAUKEE, WI — City officials said Monday they’re putting some of Milwaukee’s most notorious slumlords on notice and may target them in lawsuits or other actions to recover unpaid building code fines and property taxes, according to media reports.

“We are going after some major players,” Milwaukee City Attorney Grant Langley said at a Common Council meeting Monday morning, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported. The newspaper’s ongoing investigation has uncovered multiple problems, including not only failure to pay fines and property taxes, but also using limited liability companies to shield their identity and protect their personal assets.The newspaper’s investigation has also exposed some of the city’s problem landlords.

Among them is James H. Harrick, a top executive at Robert W. Baird & Co. and owner of a limited liability company that owns an apartment complex on the 1300 block of W. Locust Street that city building inspectors declared “unfit for human habitation.” Another building on N. Hopkins Street had a bed bug infestation and missing window screens.

Monday’s discussion came after two aldermen asked for a task force to look into bad landlord problems and hold them accountable, the Journal Sentinel reported. When the city doesn’t act, it sends a message to Milwaukee residents that they don’t have to pay property taxes because “the big boys don’t,” said Alderman Terry Witkowski, who co-sponsored the resolution to create the task force with Alderman Michael Murphy.

Pressured to send a message to problem landlords with court actions, Langley pointed to a $1.25 million lawsuit filed against landlord Mohammad A. Choudry in October.

In a criminal complaint, the city alleged he had engaged in deceptive real estate practices by using both real and dummy corporations to hide his identity and avoid legal responsibility, fox6now.com reported. In the lawsuit, the city alleged Choudry has $400,000 in delinquent property taxes. The action also seeks $850,000 in damages for criminal racketeering, the report said.

One tenant, Shaneka Brown, said the court action against Choudry was long overdue.

“In this house when it rains, it rains all the way to the basement,” said Brown, who told the TV station she had moved from another Choudry-owned property that had a bad gas leak she said had never been properly repaired.

Milwaukee residents who have a complaint about a landlord should report it here.

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