The following is not a script from a Monty Python episode.

In a 3/29/09 NY Times article, Susan Saulny reports: “Banks are quietly declining to take possession of properties at the end of the foreclosure process, most often because the cost of the ordeal – from legal fees to maintenance – exceeds the diminishing value of the real estate.”

After vacating the house in anticipation of foreclosure, the “former” homeowner finds that, to the city, they are still the “current” homeowner and the city wants them to clean up and maintain the abandoned property.

It does sound like the “dead parrot” episode from Monty Python, doesn’t it?