To reproduce: setup the hierarchy at design time: http://docs.telerik.com/devtools/winforms/gridview/hierarchical-grid/tutorial-binding-to-hierarchical-data

Please refer to the attached gif file illustrating the exact steps.

NOTE: when the "Object does not match target type" error message is displayed, some of the properties are missing, e.g. MaxLength.

Workaround: modify the columns' properties at run time.