BUFFALO, N.Y. — It's one of the biggest problems plaguing the City of Buffalo: absentee landlords.

"What we see is that people buy properties, say 10, 20 years ago, they come from Brooklyn, they come from California, they buy properties that weren't in good condition when they bought them. They don't invest in them, they charge people rent, they adhere to no codes," said Crystal Peoples-Stokes, (D) Assembly – Buffalo.

In the past, the city has gone after these absentee landlords with fines, citations and even public shaming. Now, a new piece of legislation that just passed the state Legislature may give the city more firepower to go after these landlords.

"This one actually allows the city to add code violations to a person’s taxes, so that if they're not paying their codes (violations) the property can end up in REM and perhaps the city can get access to it," said Peoples-Stokes.

"Not only can we force them to do that but we can penalize them, take them to court and if there's a judgment against them they could put a lien against the judgment that the city could go after as a tax lien," said David Rivera, (D) Niagara District councilmember.  

Rivera likes the new law but says finding the absentee landlords to enforce the law could be difficult.

"That has always been a problem for the City of Buffalo for housing court, is trying to get a hold of those landlords that live out of the state and out of the country that have properties in the city that are blighted  and not up to code," said Rivera.

People-Stokes agrees, but says under the new law, absentee landlords who don't come forward could lose these properties.

"When they're in Brooklyn and they don't come, and they have an LLC that collects the rent and sends them money, it's hard to connect with them, but if the code violation that they don't pay ends up on their tax records, they cannot not pay those. Because if they don't pay them they will lose their property," said Peoples-Stokes.

The legislation does not affect owner occupied properties. It still has to be signed by the governor before it goes into effect.