Uhrichsville facing another lawsuit over landlord registration fees
NEW PHILADELPHIA (WJER) (Jan. 8, 2024) – Following last month’s court ruling striking down Uhrichsville’s landlord registration fee, two rental property owners are trying to get their money back.
Father and son Gerald and Kevin Barker are suing the city in Tuscarawas County Common Pleas Court for nearly $1,600 plus court costs and interest. That’s how much they paid under the city’s 2020 landlord registration ordinance before Judge Elizabeth Thomakos deemed the yearly, per-unit fee unconstitutional.
Kevin Barker spoke during the December 13th council meeting, urging city officials to give everyone a refund.
“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.”
Thomakos made the determination three days earlier, also ordering the city to stop collecting the fee and prosecuting landlords for non-payment. The plaintiff in that case never paid the fee but requested refunds for the city’s other landlords, which the judge felt was beyond the scope of the case.
Uhrichsville Law Director Jeff Merkin is asking the court to throw out the Barkers’ lawsuit, citing the one-year statute of limitations for recovering taxes established in the Ohio Revised Code.