City Damages House Next Door During Demolition

Welcome once again to Leato's Law. Here's Steve Leato. — Bill sent me notes and Steve, check out the wild story from Toledo. A Toledo couple says city demolition damaged their home and records show they're not alone. This is something that's been happening. From wol. com, Brian Duggar wrote this. The Toledo couple said they left work expecting to spend the day preparing for their baby's gender reveal party, but instead the wife says she looked down at her phone and saw security camera alerts. she started getting those dings that something was happening at her place. So, she and her boyfriend lived next to a vacant Toledo house which was slated for demolition. Uh the woman was at work when 261 security notifications began appearing on her phone. She says, "I get notifications every time my camera goes off and when I did have time is when I noticed the whole porch and the whole well, you could see the whole demolition take my porch in. " So, while taking down the house next door, they also took down her porch. She called her boyfriend and said, "You'll never guess what just happened. I'm freaking out. " About 20 minutes later, she sent him the videos and he asked, "What the heck is going on? " Which, by the way, is a lot calmer than I would have been and also much tamer language than I would have used. By the time the uh boyfriend got home, the demolition crew was gone. I literally left work and I came here and by the time I got here, there wasn't anybody here. He said, "I was kind of tripped out. No note on the door, not a sorry, we destroyed your porch. " Now, the TV station, which is channel 11, uh they investigated this and they said, "Well, this does not appear to be the only time this has happened recently. " City records show that between April of 2025 and May of 2026, Toledo demolished 327 properties. And of course, those are like fire damaged buildings, emergency demolitions, and during the same time, the city recorded 62 service requests reporting damage connected to the demolitions. That is not the home they're demolishing, but something nearby. 27 formal claims were filed and only two of them so far have resulted in a payout. Now, it's possible more payouts are in the pipeline, but that number does appear to be quite low that there's 62 requests, 27 formal claims, and they've paid two of them. Noteworthy, two of them equal $20,000. 20,547. So, those are fairly large claims. TV station requested the complete files related to the 27 formal complaints into the 62 service requests. Uh, and they did that a while back, but have not yet received those records. So, they're waiting for the records. The records are supposedly coming. The most commonly reported damage involved fences and structural damage to neighboring homes such as siding, gutters, and windows. And uh the couple here shared their security camera footage with the TV station. In one of the videos, a worker appears to warn another crew member not to continue pushing from a certain direction because the house could fall into the next door neighbor's house. Now, there's a vacant lot on the other side of the house being demolished, and the heavy equipment was working from that lot. So, they're working on the vacant lot to demolish this house, and it didn't occur to anybody apparently that if you do that, it could de damage this house. So, neighbors were also concerned about the home being damaged. And a neighbor can be seen on a video taking pictures of the demolition. And uh the woman says, "I had one of my neighbors tell me that pretty much they of course everybody's watching. They were forewarning them like, "Hey, the house is blowing out this way. Go the other way. " She said the neighbor told her one worker then remarked after the house collapsed that they were lucky the entire house had not come down with the other structure. So one of the workers actually apparently is aware of this. So the woman is 19 weeks pregnant with the couple's son. Oh and by the way I'm sorry I just revealed the gender. I'm sorry. The day of the demolition was supposed to be their gender reveal. Instead, they spent it dealing with damage to their home. Uh, she says, "I was real upset. The cleanest way I can put it, I was not happy by any means. " Couple says their porch was heavily damaged along with fencing. They worry there may be deeper structural issues. Yeah, cuz generally speaking, if you smash a structure, depending on how you smash it, if you see the visible damage, there could be other damage underneath to things like, you know, framework and studs and so on. We would need to get that looked at. The boyfriend said, "You can obviously tell they probably damaged the foundation under the porch. And if porch is damaged, what about

under the porch is damaged, what about the foundation under the house? " The woman says the experience has left her afraid in her own home. I'm scared to open my front door and they close it because the whole porch is ripped off the front of the house right now. It's not safe. Couple has not gotten a final repair estimate, but they know they don't want to file a homeowner's insurance claim unless absolutely necessary. And another reason they don't want to do that, and an attorney will probably tell them this, if they ask in Ohio, cuz I'm not licensed in Ohio, is that many insurance policies have carveouts for things done by municipal agencies or agencies of a government. And that's one of the reasons that woman in Texas when a SWAT team destroyed her home trying to get somebody out that wasn't her. Um she filed a claim with an insurance policy homeowners and they said we don't cover that. That's that's a city. You deal with a city. And the insurance companies no that's not on us. And I suspect they might say the same thing here. I suspect. So the man said they'd worry about deductibles, premium increases, or even losing coverage. And why should that fall on us? And again, why even bother if it's a fool's errand? So check with a local attorney in Ohio. In a statement to 11 investigates, City of Toledo did say something and they said that municipalities generally have legal immunity under the law. Generally, in general, under Ohio law, cities are immune from civil liability for damage to property that occurs when their employees are performing a government function such as demolishing a nuisance property. and that immunity stems from Ohio's political subdivision immunity laws which generally shield cities from lawsuits tied to government functions. However, there are usually exceptions. The most clear-cut exception I can tell you for instance in Michigan is that governmental immunity protects government employees doing their jobs. But for instance, if they are negligently operating an automobile and harm somebody with that automobile, you can sue them for the negligent operation of automobile even though they're the government. Okay. So the question is if they are negligently doing something, does that still cover them? And you have to look into that. The city acknowledged the impact the demolition damage can have and they wrote, "At the same time, the city recognizes the impact demolition activity can have on neighboring properties. While there is a legal standard governing liability, the city may in appropriate circumstances take additional steps to address or remedy damage even where legal obligation may not exist. " So, they're saying, "Look, we're not saying we're liable, but we're going to take a look at it and we might make a payment. " Because, like I said, most states that I've heard of where I've looked at the liability and then where they have immunity. There are usually exceptions. I give you another exemption uh in Michigan that exists is a defect in a public building. So, let's suppose that you uh walked into city hall in Michigan and you're walking down the hallway, you turn the corner and you fall through a hole in the ground. Turns out there's floor that goes into the ground and you fall 20 ft. You get injured. Not killed. This is a family show. And um you climb out of the hole, but you've got all kinds of injuries. And somebody comes running by and says, "Oh, you know, I kept thinking we should put something around that. " Like some kind of warning, like danger, deep hole, you know what? What's that hole doing there? Oh, you know something? Uh, there was a sinkhole under the building. It collapsed and then the lower floors fell into it. Now there hole opened up on this floor. And you know, people keep falling into it. But um we we're going to put up some kind of cones or saw horses or something. Um defect in a public building is a government liability in the state of Michigan. So I'm simply pointing out that kind of liability can attach depending on the state and it's driven by statute. There'll be a statute on the books that describes what the governments are liable for and what they're immune from. Okay. So, I'm also curious if they could file an action and twist it in such a way as to say that this was a taking. The government wants to knock down a house and in the process making that lot safer, they took down part of the house next door. Isn't that a taking for which they should be compensated? That's another argument. is trying to be creative here. You want your attorney to be good and creative. So Brian Duggar wrote that for wol. com. Bill Senate, thanks a lot. One to couple says, "Scity demolition damaged our home. Records show they're not alone. " And of course, this couple hasn't gotten paid yet, so we'll see what happens. Questions or comments, put them below this. Talk to you later. Bye-bye. — Thank you for watching Leato's Law. I travel because I'd rather look back at

my life saying, "I can't believe I did that. "