Following a bench trial and ultimate judgement stating that a landlord registration fee is illegal, Uhrichsville’s leader is responding.
The ordinance related to owners of city rental property to fill out a form and then pay an annual fee of $50 per unit. That money went to pay for a code enforcement officer, but the court found this employee to not be solely for landlord properties.
Mayor Jim Zucal still advocates for the registration.
“It’s not uncommon in most cities. We want the landowners to be responsible for their properties so I, as mayor, support the concept. I think it’s our goal as a city, the administration and city council, to bring that back to light, to study, and get it right. We do want to clean up the community. These monies fund a code enforcement official who works to clean up the community, so we have responsible landlords.”
At the Thursday’s council meeting, resident and landlord Kevin Barker said the ruling validates it was an improper fee.
“Since these fees have been collected illegally for the past four years, and the city has a record of all the fees paid by every landlord and their addresses, the city should do the fair, equitable, and right thing and refund all illegal collected fees to property owners.”
A councilmember previously brought up taking the ordinance back to committee and reviewing it.
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