Clearing an Estate House in Cleveland: Three Items, and the Ticket Goes to the Owner

Most municipal waste codes deal with the estate cleanout by accident — a definition that happens not to fit, an eligibility rule written for occupied houses. Cleveland deals with it on purpose. Section 551.111 sets a hard quantity limit, then spends a whole subsection saying the limit applies to a house cleanout, applies whether or not a private hauler is coming, and applies to material merely staged for later collection.

Three Special Waste Items

Section 551.111(a) prohibits setting out for collection, on a parcel's tree lawn or other designated place for collection in a manual collection zone, a quantity of solid waste "exceeding five (5) approved waste containers, twenty (20) bags of yard waste, twenty (20) bundles of brush or tree trunks, four (4) tires, or three (3) special waste items as described in division (b) of Section 551.05." Division (b) applies the same figures in an automated collection zone, without the container line.

Three special waste items. Section 551.05(b) describes special waste as including "large bulk items such as refrigerators, furniture, mattresses, couches, shelving, fencing, house doors, storm windows, televisions, and bicycles" — which is to say, most of what a cleared house produces that will not go in a bag. Division (a) adds that none of it is routinely collected by the regular crews in any event: "No furniture, tires, yard waste, bundle of brush, tree trunk or other such special waste shall be routinely collected by the regular waste collectors."

There is also a weight rule for the awkward middle category. Solid waste other than furniture, appliances or other bulk items that is too large for approved containers "shall be securely tied in compact bundles not to exceed one hundred (100) pounds in weight and shall be placed in a location convenient for collection."

The Subsection That Closes Every Workaround

Division (c) is the reason this page exists, and it is worth quoting whole. "Applicability. The offenses established in this section are applicable without regard to whether the offender: (1) Sets the waste out due to an eviction, a house or garage cleanout, or for any other reason; (2) Uses or intends to use a public or private vendor or entity for its disposal; (3) Sets out the waste for the purpose of staging it for eventual disposal."

Each limb forecloses a familiar argument.

• It is a one-off clearout, not weekly refuse - named in (c)(1) and answered
• A private hauler is collecting it, so the City is not being asked to do anything - answered in (c)(2)
• It is only staged at the kerb until the truck arrives tomorrow - answered in (c)(3)

That third limb is the operationally important one. On a clearout the instinct is to bring everything out of the house, pile it at the tree lawn, and have a hauler take it away. In Cleveland the pile is the offence, regardless of what is scheduled to happen to it. Material comes out of the house and into a container or a truck, not onto the ground.

What It Costs, and Who Pays

Section 551.111(d) makes a violation both a civil infraction under section 551.991 and "a special misdemeanor for which the maximum penalty shall be three hundred fifty dollars ($350.00)." The civil schedule in 551.991(f) sets the amounts.

Note where the doubling sits: six special waste items, not twenty. A sofa, two mattresses, a refrigerator, a television and a set of shelving reaches it on the first afternoon of a clearout.

Late penalties compound under 551.991(g): an additional twenty dollars if the costs remain unpaid twenty days after the ticket is issued or after appeals conclude, and a further forty dollars at forty days, for sixty dollars in total.

The Ticket Goes to the Empty House

Section 551.991(b) states who is liable, and it is not the crew: "Each owner of a parcel at which an infraction has occurred is liable to the City of Cleveland in the amounts established in divisions (f) and (g)." During an administration that owner is the estate.

Division (e) then sets service. Where a Division of Waste Collection and Disposal employee observes a violation, the ticket "shall be served by sending it via regular U.S. mail, postage prepaid, to the parcel owner(s) at the tax mailing address shown in the records of the County Recorder." The date of mailing is the date of issuance, and "If the mailing is unreturned, then it shall establish that the respondents were given actual or constructive notice of the imposition of liability under this section."

On an estate property the tax mailing address of record is very often the house itself — the empty one. A ticket mailed there and not returned establishes notice, and the twenty-day clock starts. Failure to appeal or pay within twenty days of issuance "shall constitute a waiver of the right to contest the ticket and shall be considered an admission", and a default finding of liability follows.

The practical step is unglamorous and worth doing first: confirm what tax mailing address the county holds for the parcel, and get it pointed at the representative before anyone touches the contents.

Cleveland Will Rent You the Container

Having closed the kerb, the code opens a door most cities do not. Section 551.112 directs the Director of Public Works to charge published fees for the rental of dumpsters and compactors from the Department's own inventory, and the schedule is in the ordinance.

And a discount with a condition attached: "the Director of Public Works shall reduce the fees by five percent (5%) when a dumpster or compactor is rented by a City of Cleveland resident for non-commercial purposes." Whether a representative clearing an estate qualifies as a City resident renting for non-commercial purposes is a question to put to the Department rather than to assume.

Section 551.113 separately authorises agreements for use of the City's Ridge Road Transfer Station, with the Director setting a tipping fee "in an amount not less than the cost to the City of disposing of the waste", including the unit price the City pays plus operational and administrative costs.

Then Ohio Probate

A dumpster rental at these figures, or a private hauler, is a real expenditure, and in Ohio estate money is not freely spent on a house. R.C. 2113.311 creates no standing duty to maintain estate real property; it creates authority the executor or administrator applies to the probate court for, available where within a reasonable time after appointment "no one in authority has taken over the management and rental" of real property of which the decedent died seized.

Once granted, division (E)(2)(b) permits repairs "when necessary to preserve the real property from waste, provided that an order of the court shall first be obtained if the cost of repairs exceeds one hundred dollars", and (E)(3) requires a prior order before money is advanced, with the advance becoming a charge on the real property. Every figure in the table above clears one hundred dollars. The full section, and the six other states' answers, is in an Ohio executor and estate real property.

The registration obligations on a vacant Ohio house run on their own clock throughout: see vacant property registration ordinances in Ohio. Where the building has deteriorated into a nuisance, R.C. 3767.41 puts a receiver in possession instead — a receiver's property duties in Ohio.

Planning the Job Backwards

• Fix the tax mailing address for the parcel with the county before work starts, so tickets reach the representative rather than the empty house
• Plan the job so nothing is ever staged on the tree lawn; division (c)(3) makes the pile itself the offence even when a hauler is booked
• Count special waste items against three per set-out, and remember the penalty doubles at six
• Price a City dumpster against a private hauler, and ask the Department whether the five percent non-commercial reduction applies before assuming it
• Tie oversize non-bulk material into compact bundles within the hundred-pound limit
• Get the probate authority and any required order in place before the spend, and photograph contents and condition before anything moves

For the clearing work itself see what a trash-out is, and for the eviction version of the same problem, the eviction property cleanout process. The same job runs on different rules in Columbus, where bulk may only be scheduled at a dwelling unit with an occupant; Cincinnati, where a pile of small items is excluded from bulk refuse by definition; Pittsburgh, which takes the overflow at a published hourly rate; and Philadelphia, where a street dumpster is unlicensable across much of Center City. The statutory duties by state are collected at estates, probate and fiduciary.