NY is a dumb state.

There's an abandoned vehicle at my apartment house. It was left by a prior tenant and is parked at the bottom of the driveway where it's not in anybody's way, so everyone ignores it. The landlord has no incentive to deal with it because no one's complaining and it would be a hassle. (And it's not the kind of apartment house where its presence will deter renters.)

So I thought about trying to claim it through whatever legal process there was. Presumably it needs work or it wouldn't have been abandoned, but the body is in pretty good shape, so, if lucky, I could maybe get a decent used car on the cheap. (I need to replace my car, and in NY I drive less than 40 miles a week, so I only need something basic.)

But, no. Under NY law ownership of an abandoned vehicle reverts to the local government, which can scrap it or auction it off. But because it's on private property, the government can't just act on its own. The property owner has to ask them to take it.

So instead of a private citizen acting on their own to resolve a problem, the government has to insert itself, and that means nobody has an incentive to do anything, and the car will continue to sit there rotting away, of no use to anyone.

Welcome to New York.