Southaven, MS Property Maintenance: Property Blight (2026)

Chapter 4 of the Buildings title, Slum Clearance, is the City of Southaven's tool for buildings beyond ordinary maintenance. Sec. 4-183 defines the standard: the public officers can find a building unfit for human habitation, use or occupation when conditions are dangerous or injurious to the health, safety or morals of its users or the public. The listed conditions include defects increasing the hazards of fire, accident or other calamities, lack of adequate ventilation, light or sanitary facilities, dilapidation, disrepair, structural defects and uncleanliness, without limiting the list.

Sec. 4-182 sets the process under Mississippi's slum clearance statute. The public officers are the city fire marshal, the city planner, the city engineer, the chief building official and anyone else the mayor and Board of Aldermen appoint. A petition from a public authority or at least five residents, or their own motion, starts an investigation. The owner and parties in interest get a complaint and a hearing not less than ten days nor more than thirty days after service, with the right to answer and testify. If the building is found unfit, a written order requires repair, alteration or improvement or, at the owner's option, vacating and closing. A closed building gets a placard reading that use or occupation by humans is prohibited and unlawful. A dangerous building can be ordered repaired or, at the owner's option, removed or demolished. If the owner does not comply, the officers can do the work or demolish it when repair cannot be made at a reasonable cost in relation to value.

The cost, plus a penalty not to exceed twenty percent of actual costs, becomes a lien on the real estate, collected as a special tax. The owner gets ten days' written notice of the objections hearing. If the tax is unpaid six months after the assessment becomes final, the tax collector advertises and sells the property. Sec. 4-184 governs service by personal delivery, registered mail, publication for two successive weeks, posting and lis pendens filing. Under Sec. 4-185 an affected person can seek a circuit court injunction, with a hearing within twenty days. Sec. 4-67 runs alongside as the blight checklist for structures that are neglected but not unsafe.