Code Compliance Proposal Would Require Rent House Owners to Register with the City

• I am a tenant right now in a rental house and I'm having problems with my landlord regarding the "habitation" of my home as our backyard is flooding when it rains. We're talking 2 - 4 inches of standing water in the backyard and it's making my dogs sick, not to mention slogging through it to get to the car every day. Somehow it continues to hold water even after it's stopped raining for several days. Additionally, the house inside is so moist it smells of mildew and we've noticed mold under/behind the plumbing for the claw-foot bathtub. It's beyond uncomfortable. Coincidentally, my landlord is ignoring my phone calls and letters. Is there someone I can call at the city to inspect the property and force the landlord to fix the problem? What should I do? What can I do? Am I stuck in this nasty place until my lease is up? I'm at a loss. I've never encountered this situation before. Why wouldn't a landlord take care of their property?? It's an investment right? Well, it won't be if all this water causes the foundation to rot...

• SCott- what are violations? Renting out your house as a halfway house? What entity in the City is allowed to police that? Is there a maximum number of renters the city allows? For that matter, is there a maximum number of cars parked on the street that belong to a certain house a rule in Dallas? No. I am not talking about coming after a landlord for the refrigerator that the tenant leaves out on the grass, but guess what? IT'S THE PROPERTY OWNER'S RESPONSIBILITY! Yes the landlord can always say, "Well, I told him to move it three times last week", but it's problem after all. He gets the citation. And rightfully so. I'm reading all these posts about how it's the tenants that are the problem because the majority of them are crappy tenants, so then if you have a crappy tenant that can't abide by the rules that both parties agreed to in the lease, then evict your tenant! If it's just not that easy, then get out of the landlord business, nobody's forcing you rent out your property. There is such a thing as community standards, they often come in the form of city ordinances. For example, we don't have an ordinance that regulates how many public street spaces one house gets to take and use versus everyone else on the block. Again, it's called community standards. Don't try to tell me that you, as a landlord, have no control over what your renters do, or how many people are allowed to live in your property, and we shouldn't- as a community- try to hold you responsible for the actions of your renters. Please, you're not doing it out of some civic concern to find housing for the poor masses, and yes you should be held to a certain community standard and responsible for holding your tenants to what you make them sign in their lease. I hate that I have to call code and rely on that service that I pay taxes for to enforce the rules that your tenants don't want to abide by, while you earn a profit utilizing our services that are there for everyone..

• CP, I'm not insensitive to your concerns, but as I understand it these are already violations. I am simply arguing that I doubt that this new layer of bureaucracy will change any of those issues, or improve enforcement. We do get into a sticky wicket when we hold one person accountable for the actions of others. Not that those houses should be any more immune from neighborhood/city standards than any other.

• I have friends who own rental property and as others have said, tenants do an enormous amount of damage. The worst was when i had to help one of them rebuild an entire bathroom, replace the living room floor, repaint every room in the house (cigarette stains, using sharpies on the walls, holes etc..) replace the appliances in the kitchen that had been destroyed and rehang the doors that had their hinges ripped out of the walls. And that was just one house.

• This is just another opportunity for the city to collect $ for nothing from the thousands of law abiding home owners who rent out their homes. If the city believes there are issues with homes, enforce the codes and fine the owners who violate. All of the law abiding folks will pay and the ones the city wants to catch will avoid reporting, just like gun ownership.

• I think there's 10 people living next door to me, but they aren't renters.

• I agree with George: it's the tenants, not the landlords, in the case of single-family homes. That said, I'm not interested in one bit of income-generation for the rapacious Code Compliance ("may we have another $500K please") organization in Dallas; they can't fix what they're looking at already. If I thought this collection was going to pay for lost funding of Sanitation mowing vacant lots I'd be okay with it. No, I wouldn't, because I already pay --much like the maligned Storm Drainage fee-- for things that don't come back to me. This is just another one --and, penalties? What is this, Communist Russia? Marin County? Mesquite?

• "It will squeeze more dollars out of decent property owners and generally raise the cost of doing business in Dallas." Exactly. Well, I tried to be a decent property owner, but over 50% of the tenants are horrible beyond belief. Anybody who talks about slumlords needs to start understanding about slum tenants!!!!! I'm already down to the last property (vacant because I don't feel like dealing with another tenant who will damage the property) and trying to get out from under it because of them and the damn HOA (infinitely worse evil than the City). This is just going to light a fire under me to get the property sold quicker. If Garland had a fee, I never knew about it and never paid it. Oh well, I am out of there as a few months ago although their useless property standards department recently sent me a notice for a property I hadn't owned in months.

• <blockquote>In my neighborhood, we have de facto halfway houses, where people are literally renting out their homes to eight and and nine recovering addicts who wander the streets aimlessly all day. Then one of them goes off the wagon and starts doing stupid stuff</blockquote>Look, I already apologized once. You just won't give it a rest until you've humiliated me, will you? I'll say it one more time: I'm sorry about the peat moss.

• I could care less of ANY benefits, this is ONE MORE example of "their" hand, in "YOUR" pocket... We as the people, need to put both feet down, NOW. No more legal theft!!!!

• Depending on how close the city matches the single family registration program to the multi-tenant, I would suspect that rentals will go up more than $2.08 a month. I have been registered with the city since 2005 when the mutli-tenant program started. While the yearly fee is small, there are other costs. Property owners are required to attend 4 crime watch meetings per year. This is mainly a time cost but if you miss the mandatory safe symposium, it�s a very large fine. 2 years ago I missed it but they had a makeup day. This year I missed it and there was no makeup day. I heard from a friend who did attend that it was the exact same powerpoint & speakers as the previous year. The city previously was changing the dates around so it was always up to you to figure out when it would be. I can appreciate the main reason for the crime watch meetings- out of town owners who claim not to know about crime at their properties. I personally live in the same neighborhood as my property and rent to what I would label as desirable tenants. To me, this is the one-size fits all mentality of the program. I'm OK with that for the most part cause it could have an effect on those properties. I just wish I could be reimbursed all the hours I have taken off from work to sit thru these meetings that don't speak to my situation. Then there's the inspections. Previously, the re-inspections were free I believe. Recently, I had a unit inspected and failed the interior and exterior inspections buy 1 or 2 points. All very small infractions(it had just rained and I had a fee weeds that were over 12 inches). Now on my online water bill, I have a "Special Collections" of $90(45 per inspection). I talked with another property owner on my street and he too failed by a very small margin and his property was in better overall shape than mine. All this is to say that while the city will sell you on the benefits of the program, in the end, it really is just a $$ generator for the city. Prior to registration, if a neighborhood wanted to clean up, they would need to get the city to hire a community prosecutor who would then "force" code officers to hand out citations and stay on top of the progress on a case to case basis. I don't think this program is going to fix all the "problem" rental properties. It will squeeze more dollars out of decent property owners and generally raise the cost of doing business in Dallas.

• Scott- I think there is a rule for multi-family (apartments) about the number of people living under one roof. Some families claim to be singe family when there are 14 people living under one roof, because they all claim to have the same last name. I've heard inspectors talk about counting the number of toothbrushes and checking the insides of closets for sleeping materials, because there are a lot of people who live like that and a lot of people willing to rent to them. When it's in a 1,500 sq/ft house with a shed in the yard and a garage and a driveway, neighborhoods like mine and Sharon's are inundated with slumlords who rent out houses to people who clog up our streets with so many vehicles, or park on the grass or slumlords who pave over the entire front yard to make a giant driveway/parking lot to accommodate their renters. If you can count out 10 or so cars that go to one house at night (they aren't there during the day) then you have a problem. In my neighborhood, we have de facto halfway houses, where people are literally renting out their homes to eight and and nine recovering addicts who wander the streets aimlessly all day. Then one of them goes off the wagon and starts doing stupid stuff and I see it in my daily crime sheet- thus increasing our crime rate. This is a modest neighborhood with young families. All of this brings down our property values and why in the world would the city want that? We should be cracking down of these slumlords.

• In addition to driving up the costs of renting accommodations, this regulation will also ensure that a number of single family homes are never put up for rental in the first place. Consider someone who has just purchased a new house and decides to hang on to their old place awhile longer. Many of these owners who might consider doing a one-time rental aren't going to bother when they realize they not only have to submit to a whole bunch of redundant regulation, but also have to skip a day of work to attend a (probably complete waste of time) seminar.

• We have this in Carrollton. Problem is that it not only increases rental prices, it also makes ones home open to entry by strangers in your absence. The city can come in under the guise of "inspection" and rifle through your personal belongings as if executing a search warrant. They would never get away with this in a private home but they treat renters as if we're all criminals. I was unaware that a check for code violations could extend to my underwear drawer until it happened. I'd be less irritated if they would do the same to other home owners. You wouldn't mind if some guy from the city entered your house while you were at work and inspected your bedroom closets for code violations, would you?

• Sharon, I would bet the issue you are concerned about, dividing a single family in to multiple units would still fly under radar. After all, a single family home is zoned single family. Do you think the cheap landlord is gonna out himself and admit he'd subdivided his property? That is already illegal, though intruding on the definition of "family" is difficult and privacy rights tie the hands of enforcement.

• This is a great idea. If a slumlord is running a multi-family rental out of a single-family house, this will out him. 90% of the problem houses in my neighborhood are rentals. Condos/townhouses are subject to the rules and regs of the associations, which are usually much stricter and better enforced than what the city is proposing for rent houses.

• "$25? OMG! That's like $2.08 a month extra." The proposal says the fees will raise $2 million. It's not-at-all unlikely that those fees will be passed on to renters. So, that's $2 million in extra rent that renters in the city will have to pay. Whether that works out to $2 per month per renter or not, it's still means $2 million more in rent overall. Plus, if the proposal does limit where rental houses can be, that would lessen supply and result in increased rental rates, as well.

• scott, I'm surprised that you don't know the taxing structure. Apartments are generally a great asset to own because there are so many deductions. Check DCAD for a slumlord's property near you. In my neighborhood, there is a complex that is run-down, filled with drug dealers and Section 8 renters. The owner pays just slightly more than the average owner-occupied home in the neighborhood. The police know about the illegal activity that goes on there, but unless they have a rock solid warrant to enter, they stay away. Turns out that with taxes so low, the owner hires a really good lawyer who sues the city and police department every time they come around. The flipside of the argument here is that the apartment I described above is already on file as a rental property with the city (it's zoned commercial). If they can't/don't do anything there, will they be able to do anything at single family homes? My guess is that they won't start cracking down on things like absentee landlords, and mainly this is just about raising revenue. I don't think registering is really that onerous, as it's already the most lightly regulated business in the city, and from my perspective, better that the city uses a renter to increase revenue rather than me. I just don't think it's actually going to accomplish anything.

• More registration! The City of Dallas requires registration for EVERYTHING. Why can't city hall leave people alone? Let people live and work in peace. Regulation, regulation, regulation. I'm surprised I don't have to register my vehicle on some sort of special list just to park in my own driveway.

• Oh come on....how is it going to rise rent? "According to Code Compliance, Richardson, Mesquite, Farmers Branch and Fort Worth all require registration at no owner expense; Garland and Carrollton do as well, charging around $50 per property. Dallas's fee would run $25, as proposed." $25? OMG! That's like $2.08 a month extra. Rental homes are the worst Code violators. They should pay to offset the costs and manpower dedicated to them by the city.

• As suburban points out, this will raise the cost of renting a home. Is that such a great idea as well? I would imagine that condos/townhouses would be included though that is based entirely on conjecture. Here's a question I don't know the answer to: are apartment complexes taxed at the same rate as single family residential? Do they get a break/pay a higher rate? I'd wonder too how other commercial and industrial zones are taxed. Certainly NO property should escape taxation even if Don Hill or any other politico wishes a kick-back. What I've written ignores Churches, though that is a complicated issue. Should there be/is there a different standard for houses of worship proper and church owned properties? Some of these are retail spaces, residential facilities and other charitable facilities. Churches, if competing for retail space shouldn't get a competitive advantage for competitive enterprises.

• Great idea ! Although I do believe to be fair condo/town-home rentals should be included. Many condo developments are becoming mostly rentals now anyway.

• So renting a house in Dallas is about to go up $2 million per year? Nice for property owners that the tenants would become responsible for many of the potential violations. I notice that one of the charts mentions how multi-tenant properties are subject to zoning and land use restrictions. Would this new proposal allow the city to prevent certain areas from having rental houses?

• gee anon, imagine if we had a court system or something where an aggrieved renter could challenge a landlord who has a home for rent that is below some minimal standards set by a legislature perhaps. Or, if some higher or greater standard were desired, imagine if they could draft a contract that would spell out the expectations of both the renter and landlord. Perhaps even a state board of realtors and real estate agents could draft a few forms for mass consumption. I suppose we could even have the state promulgate some forms on behalf of the both parties and fair and reasonable standard. Man, anon, it's your lucky day. We have just that system right now. All without registration and a 25 dollar fee. If you wish to see this in action, go to small claims court, or the Justice of the peace courts. This represents a fair portion of their docket.

• When I was an apt. locator nearly everyone wanted a house to rent. If not a house a condo, apartments were the last on the list. I suppose they wanted this despite not having advantage of the regulation that the larger properties held. If rental properties by their very nature cost the city more than owner occupied homes then perhaps the city should be able to recoup the difference. It seems to me they already get an increase in taxes as a rental property doesn't enjoy the homeowners exemption that owner occupied homes do. If some bad landlords cost the city these actions should be fined, feed or what have you. But, if the intention is to simply raise revenues then the city should have the temerity and honesty to raise taxes. These hidden fees, taxes and fines, if not off-setting real costs are a pernicious force that raises our tax burden often in unfair ways. Again if these off-set real costs that is appropriate.

• This will make it really easy to notify the landlords when the anti-immigrant rental laws pass in Dallas

• I like the idea of making people register a home they rent out as a business. It is a business, and renters need some City protection when a business owner misbehaves. Lets make sure rent houses are safe and up to code. We do it for multifamily... renters in single-family homes deserve no less.

• A fine print code inspection per this proposed ordinance limits the number of 'rent house roaches' per sq. foot. City attorneys have asked that the wording be re-worked to read 'cockroaches' rather than 'encourage however inadvertently transitory marijuana usage among the non-homeowner populace.'

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