Cleveland cracks down on code violations, issuing $1.7M in fines, mostly to landlords
CLEVELAND, Ohio — Cleveland has issued more than 9,000 tickets and $1.7 million worth of fines using a new tool designed to penalize landlords and property owners who flout the city’s housing code.
The use of the $200 civil tickets started modestly, as city inspectors wrote dozens in January and February. However, citations ramped up to thousands being written each month this fall. More than half have been at rental properties that are not following the city’s rules.
Most of the tickets have gone unpaid so far, but officials warn that ignored tickets will be tacked onto violators’ property taxes. Cleveland has already sent more than 500 unpaid tickets to the county to be placed as liens.
This new way of penalizing property owners for code violations is just one part of Mayor Justin Bibb’s “Residents First” overhaul of Cleveland’s building code. The legislation passed in early 2024 included several new blight-fighting tools, including forcing out-of-town landlords to have local agents who are responsible for a property, and requiring point-of-sale inspections for vacant buildings.
But the civil tickets are a new enforcement tool for inspectors who used to rely on slow-going criminal filings to force owners to fix properties. Building and Housing Director Sally Martin O’Toole said it was “next to impossible” to get out-of-town landlords to show up to criminal court to be held accountable.
“We’ve had a very lousy track record of getting those types of people in court, so civil tickets provide a more immediate tool to get the property owners’ attention and to start to get compliance,” Martin O’Toole said. “And we have seen a lot of examples of compliance.”
Cleveland had issued 9,042 tickets as of Dec. 28th.
Landlords who did not properly register their rentals, or didn’t have a local agent in charge, accounted for 6,828, or 76%, of the tickets.
It’s unclear how many rental properties are in Cleveland, but while studies suggest the number could be 90,000 or more, tens of thousands remain unregistered each year.
Another 365 tickets were issued for properties that did not have their lead-safe certificate. If a rental is built before 1978, it must be deemed safe from lead poisoning before it can be rented.
There were also 1,727 tickets were issued for other code enforcement issues, and 122 were issued for unregistered vacant buildings.
Cleveland issued $1.7 million in fines and $400,000 in late fees in 2025. So far, just $210,000 of those fines and fees have been paid off.
Property owners can appeal tickets, and 716 have been appealed. So far, 330 appeals have been denied and 132 were granted.
Councilman Kris Harsh told cleveland.com that so far, residents who feel they’ve unfairly gotten a ticket have been able to resolve them through the appeal process. He said he has not heard much feedback about the civil tickets, which he says is a good thing, because it means landlords are getting them instead of homeowners.
Harsh said it’s too soon to see if civil tickets and the Residents First legislation as a whole are making enough of an impact to combat blight.
Colleen Majeski, an assistant director who helps oversee civil ticket appeals for the city, said the process has also created more direct contact between the city and landlords — something that rarely happened under the old system. In many cases, she said, tickets or appeal hearings become the first real conversation the city has had with a property owner.
Even if they’re angry about the ticket, forcing landlords to go through the process, write their appeals and gather their forms has led many to get their ticketed property and other homes they owned into compliance, Majeski said.
Martin O’Toole said 14% of the properties cited for rental registration and 22% of the properties cited for lead-safe certificates started following the rules after receiving a ticket.
Cleveland isn’t just sending tickets. With inspectors now systematically looking through neighborhoods for code violations, Martin O’Toole said the department has started giving homeowners warnings about violations and even thank-you tags if no issues are found.