Richmond officials outline plan after tax rebate checks mailed to wrong payees

Sabrina Joy Hogg, interim chief administrative officer for Richmond City, told the Organizational Development Standing Committee that a printing and payee error affected the city’s property tax rebate distribution and outlined steps to reissue remaining payments.

Hogg said about 59,000 rebate checks were printed for the program, roughly 23,000 were mailed, and roughly 36,000 were held back. Of the mailed checks, about 15,000 have been cashed and roughly 8,000 remain outstanding. Around 8,300 checks used the wrong payee name or address; the administration estimates about 3,100 of those went out the door before the problem was caught and roughly 5,200 were pulled back. Hogg said the underlying rebate calculation was verified as correct but the wrong payee and some owner-year mismatches caused the error.

The city will let outstanding checks “go stale” on June 16 (90 days after issuance) and then reprint the remaining payments starting June 17, with the goal of mailing reissued checks by June 30, Hogg said. She also said finance has worked with banking partners to allow cashing of valid checks that institutions verify with the city, and that 69 stop‑payment refund requests had been received and would be reviewed.

Why it matters: thousands of Richmond homeowners are awaiting refunds…