Going to court to force an absentee landowner to mow an overgrown lawn is not a good idea. You could spend thousands of dollars on legal fees with no guarantee of success.

Q: We live on a nice street with homes on one-third-acre and one-half-acre lots. One lot is owned by an investor who lives in Turkey, and he does little to maintain the property. Grass grows more than a foot tall, and weeds grow 4 feet tall. The property is for sale, but it hasn’t been sold yet. I have contacted him on LinkedIn, but he did not respond. What can we, as owners of nearby residences, do about this? We’ve notified the city of Houston countless times. There are currently three yellow and one red violation tickets, but nothing happens. Can we procure a court order that permits us to keep the lawn........

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