Property Use Doesn’t Match Cuyahoga County Records

[Don Petrasek]

I have a client who bought a home at the cuyahoga county sheriff’s sale (located in city of Cleveland). I noticed that the Occupancy Class in the county records is two-family, but its set up as a one family including only one gas and electric meter.  Client plans to flip it as a one family.  The lenders that I use are telling me that the appraiser is going to pull the county records and we’re likely going to have an issue due to the mismatch in current use vs county classification of property.

Anyone have any experience with this issue in city of Cleveland?

1) is it a problem for lending or is the appraiser just going to appraise based on current use and not worry about county records

2) if it does become an issue, what does the city of Cleveland require to correct the county records (lenders are telling me that only the city of CLE building dept can authorize a change to county records which sounds right).  It does appear that the property could have been a two family in the past, so my concern is that it was illegally converted in the past and we’re going to have to jump thru tons of hoops to fix it