 Any non-compliance with any provisions in the ordinance can result in penalties not less than $100 or more than $1000 a day. It is the duty of the Department of Inspections, Permits and Licenses to ensure compliance with all certificates of appropriateness.

The Historic Landmarks Act also works together the Metro Government’s property maintenance code with regards to owners neglecting their property. Louisville’s building code was enacted pursuant to KRS 82.705 which states that “a local government may, by ordinance, enact a nuisance code and impose penalties for violation of the nuisance code.” The Metro Government’s building code states that its provisions are “not mandatory for existing buildings or structures designated…as historic buildings when such buildings are judged by the Code Official to be safe and in the interest in the public interest of health, safety and welfare.” The Code Official is designated as the authority responsible for enforcing the provisions of the building code and vested with the power to make all required inspections, to enter structures at reasonable times to inspect them,  and to issue citations, notices or orders regarding non-compliance with the code. The Code Official also has the power to determine that a structure is unsafe, and unfit for human occupancy or use, and after reaching this finding to condemn the property. An unsafe premise is defined as a structure that is “found to be dangerous to life, health, property, or the safety of the public or its occupants…[because it] is so damaged, decayed, dilapidated, structurally unsafe, or of such faulty construction or unstable foundation that partial or complete collapse is possible.” The Code Official is also given the power to order the owner of the unsafe premises to either make the necessary repairs or to demolish the structure, and if the owner fails to comply with the order then the Code Official will raze the structure, the costs of which to be charged against the owner with non-payment resulting in a lien against the property.

These two codes intersect and diverge in a number of ways that have consequences for historic preservation in Louisville. First, it is clear that the Historic Preservation Commission is given the power to designate, and oversee any requested construction or demolition of a landmark structure or property in a historic district, but their power is stripped when the Code Official deems a property unsafe, and the Commission is given no power to prevent obvious neglect before it is too late. The Department of Codes and Inspections has a little more power to correct code violations, but again their power is limited to issuing citations for code violations, and the department might not even know that a building is deteriorating until it is too late.  Intertwining with the statutory issues behind demolition by neglect, are of course the economic and political issues. Many developers see the administrative hoops required for construction on a historic property as an expensive burden that hinders their plans for development. 