AURORA, Colo. -- In the months since anyone lived in one East Aurora home on Exposition Drive, neighbors said it has gone downhill fast.

”It’s obviously vacant, there are notices on the door,” said Mike Notz, who lived a few houses down. ”The mailbox got knocked over and the neighbor across the street fixed it just out of the goodness of his heart to make it look better.”

That abandoned house and thousands like it in Aurora are in between foreclosure and a new owner.

Jeff Hancock, Aurora’s vacant property coordinator, said that’s why the city passed an ordinance last year requiring banks register vacant homes and be responsible for maintaining them.

”In most cases, the problems are minor, such as overgrown weeds or trash on the property. We have had success in getting the lenders to take care of properties now rather than having the city do it for them,” said Hancock.

More than 2,000 vacant homes have been registered since the measure was enacted in April 2009.

The city has generated $138,800 in bank fees and fines for failure to register.

But the Colorado Bankers Association has resisted the ordinance.

”It puts a lender in a position of ownership before they became the actual owner,” said Jennifer Waller with the Colorado Bankers Association.

The banking group is now supporting a proposed state law that would make Aurora’s action’s unnecessary.

”A judge can grant an expedited foreclosure process, meaning the property goes to sale sooner and there’s an actual owner sooner. And that pretty much solves the problem on a statewide basis,” said Waller.

But until then, people living next to Aurora’s abandoned houses only wish their ordinance targeting banks worked faster.

”I’d like to see it enforced, personally,” said Notz. ”It would really be in the bank’s best interest. If they’re trying to get the most money out of the house, the better it looks, the more they’re going to get.”