Property owners in Cuyahoga County, as per notices received in the mail from the Treasury Department, were required to pay the property taxes for the second half of 2021 by 07-14-2022.

 

I paid the property taxes for our two parcels -- located on the south side of Jefferson Park --the one with the house and the second for our adjoining vacant lot ahead of the deadline -- the first on July 13th and the second on the morning of the 14th -- because the website would not let me pay for the second parcel -- every time I tried entering the second parcel number -- the new website would keep repeating the information for the first parcel. So I gave up -- paid the taxes on the next day -- when the website gladly accepted information for the second parcel.

 

(Of the nearly sixty parcels around the three sides of Jefferson Park -- our neighbor and us are the only ones with vacant parcels -- like having your own private park with trees and shrubs and flowers – and with ample space for the pets to roam freely.)

 

The new website provided confirmation numbers to provide assurance that the County had indeed received the taxes.

 

After I had paid my property taxes -- I heaved a sigh of relief -- no more botheration with paying property taxes for another year.

 

I guess I was in for a big surprise!

 

On Sunday, July 17th -- around 12:15 a.m. -- (as a retired individual -- I do a lot of my work on computers -- have four units in various corners of the house --at night) I was looking for some property related information on our house -- so I visited the new Cuyahoga County website and I was totally shocked to find that the site stated that I had not only not paid my taxes for the second half -- I was also slapped with the 10% penalty. I checked the other parcel -- same response -- taxes not paid for second half plus slapping of 10% penalty.

 

In fact, the taxes for our parcels had been paid ahead of the deadline (midnight -- July 14, 2022) and confirmation numbers had been received.

 

I checked with the online bank -- for both parcels the property tax amounts had been withdrawn from the account.

 

I immediately googled if anyone had experienced similar problems with the new website.

 

After over a million results in a fraction of a second -- the only relevant response was from cleveland.com -- titled "New portal makes it easier to pay Cuyahoga County tax bills online".

 

"Easier" -- definitely not!

 

I did not find anything wrong with the previous website -- it was a breeze navigating it.

 

Cuyahoga County has joined hands with numerous other online services -- banks, credit card companies, shopping, -- who update their sites to supposedly improve the customer experience but actually end up making the experience an unpleasant one with bugs and difficult navigating -- and once customers get used to navigating the site -- they are ready to launch another new site with of course -- enhanced customer experience.

 

On July 19, around 1:50 p.m. -- the new website had the following note:

"Payments submitted on or before 7/14/22 are being processed. Penalty charges appearing on our website will be removed as timely payments are posted."

 

As of the writing of this post -- past 1:30 a.m. p.m. on Tuesday, August 2 -- the penalty charges on the two parcels for which payments had been made ahead of deadline and confirmation numbers received -- have not yet been removed.

 

On July 19th -- I sent an email to the W. Christopher Murray, II, Cuyahoga County Treasurer requesting an early resolution of the issues -- with copies to Armond D. Budish, Cuyahoga County Executive, Pernel Jones Jr., President, Cuyahoga County Council, Cheryl L. Stephens, Vice President, Cuyahoga County Council, Dale Miller, Cuyahoga County Council Member, District 2, Kaitlin Durbin, cleveland.com, and a few others.

 

So far, there has been no response from the County Treasurer.

 

I did get a prompt response from Ms. Durbin who stated that in addition to the penalty levied on the second half payments, she had heard instances where penalties were also levied on the first half payments when the deadline was extended.

 

 

 

This is our house (with vacant lots on either side) on the south side of Jefferson Park photographed a couple of winters ago. This snow-covered view so warms my heart -- makes me, for a moment, forget all the world’s problems.

 

Enjoy the summer and the rest of the year too!