Condo owners to get refund of walk-through fees

After a City review of the Cincinnati Municipal Code, a Walnut Hills couple will be receiving a refund of their Bureau of Buildings and Inspections (B&I) walk-through fees.

The City Manager's office investigated their complaint after they submitted a letter to City Council claiming that, as condo owners, they were being treated differently from the owners of single-family homes.

In the letter, they claimed that B&I was charging them $400 for a next-day walk-through inspection of their renovation, a service that single-family homeowners would receive for free.

They also say that the free walk-through they were offered would require them to delay their work for two weeks - making it not so "free" after all.

Section 1101-85 of the Cincinnati Municipal Code, "Fees in General", does not specifically mention housing types when addressing walk-through fees.

Their refund is currently being processed.

In the report from City Manager Milton Dohoney Jr., three other possible discrepancies in treatment were not addressed:

* The City does not include condominiums in its homeownership totals,
* The City does not include new condominium purchases in its new homeownership totals, and
* The City provides recycling services to single-family through 8-unit houses, but not to individual condominium units.

Previous reading on BC:
Does Cincinnati treat condos differently from single-families? (2/20/08)