All Forum Posts by: David Terbeek

We use David Dvorin at Lieberman, Dvorin and Dowd, PM me if you would like contact info.  

I haven't used David Streeter but have met him, seems like a good guy as well.

This is normal in the Cleveland market, very few muti-families are separately metered.  I think the PM is correct, adjust your rent accordingly.  Generally, under Ohio law and specifically in local court interpretations, you must have a separate meter to bill the utility to the resident.  I do know that some landlords use the fixed charge amount concept for the water/sewer but it is unclear in case law how well that holds up because there is no meter reading to justify the charge.  Why take the chance, just add to the rent.

The National Association of Residential Property Manager website, NARPM.org  has options for local managers.  This is an industry specific trade group.  

If I am interpreting your post correctly, it sounds like you have some specific ideas about what should be done and how it should be done.  If that is the case, an individual as a PM is a good idea or perhaps a small PM company.  Larger PM companies will have established processes in place that they apply to properties.  They should still be responsive but may not be fully customizable if you are asking them to do things in a specific way.  

Nicholas J. DeBaltzo, Jr., Esq.; Dinn, Hochman & Potter, LLC

Elena-  You may also wish to visit NARPM.org.  It is a trade group for management companies specializing in residential property management. 

Working with the Cleveland Water Company is an adventure, here are a couple stories.  There does not seem to be much rhyme or reason.

1)  We had a bill around $8,000.  We argued that we could not find a leak.  2 months later we received an adjusted bill where the high usage mysteriously dissappeared.

2)  Another bill was around $9,000.  Water Co would not back down, we had to do a monthly payment plan for $x per month to get it paid off

3)  Currently, we are working on another issue.  There was constant usage early December that stopped on its own, plumber could not find a leak.  Starting on 1/1/22 it started again.  We are having the toilet flappers changed as a precaution as that is one thing that could cause intermittent usage but not the $11,000 level you are experiencing.

You can go to clevelandwater.com and create an account.  You will find an hour by hour usage report which will help you to isolate when the water department claims the usage was made and how much.  If you PM me, I can send an example report from our current issue (can't seem to attach to the post).

Unfortunately, I do not believe CMHA will pay for this, they pay up to their expected reasonable cost of the utility and that is all.  Keep arguing with the water co, maybe you will get lucky and the balance will magically go away.

For attorneys we mainly use David Dvorin at Lieberman, Dvorin and Dowd but I do have a couple others that we have used in the past.  PM for contact info.

The county changes values every 3 years.  At 3 years they do a desk assessment and every other (so every 6 years) they do drive by appraisals.  When they appraise they are supposed to be looking a comparable sales but they do not seem to look at the actual sales by specific property.  So it is unlikely that they will re-assess to the purchase price but it is almost 100% that taxes are going up, maybe significantly.  And, of course, when you purchased for more it makes a tax appeal almost impossible.

We file 10-15 per month in Cleveland.  The court is definitely stacked against you but it can be navigated.  Expect delays.  One disposition is that we generally accept CHN rental assistance (sort of forced to accept even if we didn't want to) which delays things but at least we get the money.  

The longest delays come from the free Legal Aid attorneys that are assigned to certain tenants.  The best advice there is to agree to a moveout date, usually 30-45 days.  The court "likes" this better than the judgement, takes away the fight with the attorney and gets you the possession back.

Sometimes the tenants don't show and you win right away - yes, that still happens.

In the end, @Nathan Fisher is right on, you need a good attorney.  Not any general attorney but one that specializes in evictions.  Follow instructions exactly and you should get in and out of court in 1 to 2 months in most cases.