City Files Civil Lawsuit on Property Maintenance Concerns
Vol. III. No. 231 - Does this new action signal how property maintenance issues will be dealt with in the future?
Last week, the City of Troy filed a civil complaint seeking a court order declaring that a downtown commercial building does not meet local standards for upkeep and safety, and asking the judge to require that the exterior be brought into compliance. Instead of filing criminal charges in municipal court, the city filed this action in Common Pleas Court as a civil action, a potential break in past practice, when many property maintenance cases have been tried as criminal actions.
The lawsuit asks the court to declare that the property violates the city’s property maintenance, zoning, and nuisance abatement codes, to order the owner to correct those problems, and to allow the city to step in and make repairs if the owner does not.
City ordinances require all buildings in Troy to be kept in good condition, with sound walls, paint, windows, doors, and waterproofing, as stated in the International Property Maintenance Code, which has been adopted by the city. According to the complaint, the building at issue has peeling and flaking paint, broken or boarded windows and doors, rotting wood, rusting metal, and damaged and crumbling brick.
The city’s own records show that formal orders to repair those conditions were personally delivered in July 2024, with a checklist that spelled out what needed to be done: scrape and repaint, repair wood and metal, and fix brick and mortar. The city says those repairs still have not happened, even after multiple notices and more than a year of lead time.
Because the building sits in a historic district, major exterior changes cannot happen without a Certificate of Appropriateness from the Planning Commission. The lawsuit explains that the owner did seek and receive such a certificate in June 2024 for part of the building, and a broader approval in April 2025, but those approvals expired after six months when the required work was not completed.
The complaint also notes that some work was done without approval, or not in the way the Planning Commission had authorized, which created separate zoning violations. Still, those zoning and historic‑district issues are mostly described as part of the larger picture of a building that has not been brought up to code, rather than as the main event themselves.
Under Troy’s nuisance abatement code, a property that does not comply with building, zoning, or property maintenance laws can be treated as a public nuisance, and the city can seek civil remedies in court. Here, the city is asking for a permanent injunction that would require the owner to fix the problems or allow the city to do the work and bill the costs back to the property as a lien.
The city is also asking for a civil fine of one hundred dollars per day for each day the violations continue after a November 2025 notice, an approach that focuses on daily compliance rather than a one‑time criminal conviction. This mirrors broader conversations in Troy about whether property maintenance should be handled through civil enforcement rather than criminal charges.
At the heart of the complaint is a question of how a community cares for its most visible streets and historic buildings. The city points out that this structure sits just steps from the public square, in an area where public and private partners have invested heavily in downtown revitalization, and argues that a deteriorating building undermines that work and harms the character of the district.
This lawsuit suggests a shift from punishing individual offenders in criminal court toward using civil law to push for long‑term compliance and preservation. For residents, it raises important civic questions: how to balance private property rights with shared expectations for a safe, well‑kept downtown, and how local government should respond when years of notices and negotiations still do not lead to basic repairs. Currently the lawsuit remains in its early stages and the property owner has not yet filed a formal response or taken any public action to address the claims.
This is a story that will take time to develop. As we have seen with other issues, civil litigation can stretch over many months as both sides exchange documents with the court and potentially negotiate a resolution. Future hearings or motions could shed light on whether the property owner intends to contest the city’s claims, seek a settlement, or simply bring the building into compliance. Readers who want to follow the case can monitor filings at the Miami County Court of Common Pleas or check back here for updates as the situation evolves.
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