Sidewalk viol. cheaper for city to fix or fix yrself ?
We received a violation with notice that city will be here in approx 7 days to fix it. Is it cheaper to do this ourselves or let the city do it. How much does it cost ? We have no idea thanks
We received a violation with notice that city will be here in approx 7 days to fix it. Is it cheaper to do this ourselves or let the city do it. How much does it cost ? We have no idea thanks
i had a violation over a year ago ….by the time i was ready to have it fixed privately , the city came & did it ( they asked me if they should continue & i said please do) … that was about 1 year ago ..i’ve never received a bill or anything from the city …now i am refinancing & thought i could close by the end of this month & the broker is telling me this sidewalk violation has to be taken care of before i can close …. never heard about this until last week …i contacted 311 but can’t actually talk to someone in person to resolve this …any ideas ….
Wow, Steve. Loved your blog article! Your experience is quite similar to our own. But get this: After the first stealth inspection, the homeowners on our block all the homeowners agreed to appeal the assigned violations. Well, as for our house, when we appealed the two flags we got on the first round, guess what happened on the second? We ended up getting three! So much for an appeal. Still, I’m thinking we should ask for another reinspection anyway. At this point, 10 years after the fact, who knows how the City would evaluate our sidewalk today?
First off, is there really a violation there? I got cited two weeks ago for a “trip hazard” over a piece of sidewalk that’s completely flat and structurally sound. After speaking with some DOT friends I learned that these initial sidewalk inspections are problematic. If you dispute the finding you can request a sidewalk reinspection.
I wrote an article about it on my site:
http://www.brooklynrowhouse.com/sidewalk_inspection
I understand that, but my question is this. Suppose someone trips and injures themselves on your sidewalk and then sues you. Since you have a sidewalk violation on record with the DOT, wouldn’t that be an excuse for your insurance company to refuse to pay the claim?
In other words, does the violation expose you to a potential huge loss from a lawsuit?
Well, actually no, Won Ton, given the nature of our “violation”, we’ve really not been concerned about insurance liability issues so much as another consequence of this situation. Keep reading.
What happened here is that, in an totally unannounced sidewalk inspection raiding party, the City came through our block about 10 years ago and got flag-happy! As a result, nearly every residence got hit with so-called violations. I say “so-called” because the great majority of defects that were claimed to be violations were not the kind that can cause trip and falls. (In our case, for example, we got a flag because eons ago some genius juvenile etched their initials into a newly-cemented sidewalk pane following a water main repair.) Bottom line: no one has moved to repair their violations themselves (except the one neighbor I mentioned above who got screwed in the process) and the City has never offered to do the repairs either. Through the years, some of the homeowners got lucky and their violations were addressed by default when National Grid came in, tore up sections of the sidewalk to relay pipes and repaved some areas that had been flagged. But not everyone was so lucky and many of us would love to have the City come back and do the repairs and just invoice us for the job!That’s because simply ignoring the issue doesn’t make it go away. The uncured violation places a lien on the title that could become an issue at times of refinance or sale.
Brooklynista–Aren’t you worried about the insurance liability if you have a DOB violation on record?
The city charges $11/sqft. You might be able to pay 6-8/sqft that to a private outfit, but as others have said, you’re stuck if it’s not approved or if anything goes wrong. What if they bust your water main?. For the size of most sidewalks, I imagine the savings are not worthwhile.
EXCEPT, if you have lovely marble or bluestone sidewalks that could end up being replaced with concrete, I would sure do it myself.
Thanks for the feedback. We will stick with the city….