republic-os/legislation/us/states/de/149/hb-188.md

type, title, description, jurisdiction, legislature, session, identifier, citation, classification, subjects, status, primary_sponsors, version_count, action_count, vote_count, first_action, last_action, source, source_identifier, source_url, source_hash, vintage, source_snapshot, retrieved_at, confidence, tags

type	title	description	jurisdiction	legislature	session	identifier	citation	classification	subjects	status	primary_sponsors	version_count	action_count	vote_count	first_action	last_action	source	source_identifier	source_url	source_hash	vintage	source_snapshot	retrieved_at	confidence	tags
Bill	AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 9 AND 25 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO LIENS OF POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS AND MUNICIPALITIES.	Criminal and administrative enforcement of laws and ordinances relating to the condition of real property and abatement of violations thereof is a significant expense of local governments. The growing number of vacant and abandoned properties has increased these costs to local governments. The owners of vacant and abandoned property routinely fail to respond to the issuance of violation notices, citations, and tickets. Thus, the local government, at taxpayer expense, is left to maintain the property in a condition that will protect the public health, safety and welfare and minimize the deleterious effect the unmaintained property has on the local community. When a property owner fails or refuses to maintain real property according to minimum code standards, the costs incurred by local government for enforcing its codes and abating violations thereof, should be borne by the property owner rather than the taxpayers. Thus, this bill is intended to clarify that costs associated with enforcement of local laws and ordinances relating to the condition of real property and abatement of violations of those laws and ordinances shall be a lien against the property subject to the enforcement action. Recoupment of costs associated with the enforcement of building, property maintenance, zoning, drainage, sewer, housing, or sanitation codes is a lengthy and expensive process for local governments. This bill clarifies that local governments may include the amount of the lien on the local tax billing of the property subject to the enforcement action may collect the lien in the same manner as other property taxes.	us/states/de	Delaware General Assembly	149	HB 188	Delaware HB 188 (149)	bill		enacted	Bryan Townsend James Johnson	1	7	2	2017-05-18	2017-09-07	openstates	ocd-bill/7211a733-805d-4431-a8f1-865f88a3a28b	https://legis.delaware.gov/BillDetail?LegislationId=25822	8cd2e5b53aa4602f3cc72e85868a542e59f5845eea7d8283dea509b62b46e179	2026-07-01	https://data.openstates.org/daily/2026-07-01/public.pgdump	2026-07-06	reported	legislation bill us-de

Delaware HB 188 (149) — AN ACT TO AMEND TITLE 9 AND 25 OF THE DELAWARE CODE RELATING TO LIENS OF POLITICAL SUBDIVISIONS AND MUNICIPALITIES.

Criminal and administrative enforcement of laws and ordinances relating to the condition of real property and abatement of violations thereof is a significant expense of local governments. The growing number of vacant and abandoned properties has increased these costs to local governments. The owners of vacant and abandoned property routinely fail to respond to the issuance of violation notices, citations, and tickets. Thus, the local government, at taxpayer expense, is left to maintain the property in a condition that will protect the public health, safety and welfare and minimize the deleterious effect the unmaintained property has on the local community. When a property owner fails or refuses to maintain real property according to minimum code standards, the costs incurred by local government for enforcing its codes and abating violations thereof, should be borne by the property owner rather than the taxpayers. Thus, this bill is intended to clarify that costs associated with enforcement of local laws and ordinances relating to the condition of real property and abatement of violations of those laws and ordinances shall be a lien against the property subject to the enforcement action. Recoupment of costs associated with the enforcement of building, property maintenance, zoning, drainage, sewer, housing, or sanitation codes is a lengthy and expensive process for local governments. This bill clarifies that local governments may include the amount of the lien on the local tax billing of the property subject to the enforcement action may collect the lien in the same manner as other property taxes.

Version chain

The bill's text revisions, in order — the diff chain from filing to enrollment.

1. Bill Text (committee substitute) — source

Votes

• SM — 21–0 (pass) · upper
• SM — 41–0 (pass) · lower

Sponsors

• Bryan Townsend — primary (person)
• James Johnson — primary (person)
• Daniel B. Short — cosponsor (person)
• John L. Mitchell — cosponsor (person)
• Kimberly Williams — cosponsor (person)
• Stephanie L. Hansen — cosponsor (person)

Timeline

The legislative action history — every referral, reading, and vote.

• 2017-05-18 Introduced and Assigned to Housing & Community Affairs Committee in House introduction, referral-committee
• 2017-06-14 Reported Out of Committee (Housing & Community Affairs) in House with 7 On Its Merits committee-passage
• 2017-06-22 Passed By House. Votes: 41 YES passage
• 2017-06-23 Assigned to Judicial & Community Affairs Committee in Senate introduction, referral-committee
• 2017-06-28 Reported Out of Committee (Judicial & Community Affairs) in Senate with 3 On Its Merits committee-passage
• 2017-06-30 Passed By Senate. Votes: 21 YES passage
• 2017-09-07 Signed by Governor executive-signature

Source

OpenStates / OpenCivicData bulk snapshot 2026-07-01; origin ocd-bill/7211a733-805d-4431-a8f1-865f88a3a28b. Confidence: reported (aggregated from official Delaware legislature records).