:shocked this is how your city can ruin your business
I think there is something very similar in the works for Savannah, GA.
Quote from the story:
City officials estimated the fees would raise about $775,000, which would be used to hire people to enforce the new rules.
Uhhh, aren’t these called police officers?
This should be aimed at deadbeat LLs, not everyone. I don’t see why they think they have to charge the LLs extra money if they’re wanting to go after tenants who are being a nuisance. Guess the next thing they’ll do is start charging banks who hold a lien against a homeowner’s property when the homeowner causes problems.
We’ve got that here in Ohio. In fact, there is a proposed bill in the state legislature that would allow the cities to put nuisance fees on the landlords PERSONAL property tax bill, thereby automatically peircing the corporate veil. This is JUST THE BEGINNING! As socialism comes to power (and it is), anyone that is successful (and especially evil companies and businesses) will become bigger targets to have their money stolen in the name of income redistribution.
What these nuisance laws effectively do is make the landlord a vigilante. The city wants the landlord to deal with incidents that occur on their property, even when that involves criminals that don’t live there. For example, I recently had a homeless, career criminal that tresspassed on our property repeatedly. He is a convicted felon and has been arrested over 175 times. I have had him arrested several times for criminal trespass. When I went to court last week to testify against him, the prosecutor informed me that they just decided to release him!!! I wrote a NASTY letter to the editor complaining that the prosecutor wasn’t doing her job and attended the nuisance abatement board meeting, where I was the primary subject of the meeting. The city prosecutor was at the meeting and I asked her why she wasn’t doing her job - she refused to answer! I asked if they would grant me unlimited immunity and buy me a baseball bat (since they apparently want me to fight crime, instead of the police doing so). No, they wouldn’t do that either. I asked them how they wanted me to fight crime without immunity, without a baseball bat, and without a cape - again no answer.
The did say that they wanted fewer police calls to the property. Since only ONE (1) police call had even involved one of my tenants, I asked them how exactly they wanted me to accomplish that? No answer!
By the way, the criminal who had been arrested 175 times has now been arrested 176 times and is back in jail. He was out one day before he assaulted a 14 year old and voilated a temporary protection order on another woman. After my scalding letter to the editor, they might think twice before releasing this criminal this time.
This issue WILL resolve itself with a little time because I’ve already evicted all the riff-raff and I’m currently rehabbing the building. Everytime I see riff-raff on the property, I run them off. If I see known criminals (druggies) in any tenant’s apartment, I terminate that tenant’s lease.
I have never been fined by the city because I have a very good reputation of taking over problem properties and rehabbing them. In fact, I’ve turned around several problem blocks. However, I STILL HATE THESE NUISANCE LAWS! In my opinion, landlords should manage their property and their tenants and the police should arrest criminals.
Mike
I cant believe this crap. LL’s pay taxes as do the rest of the people in this country. Those taxes pay every cities police forces salaries. SO why the hell do they want us to do the police’s job ??
this is the dumbest idea i’ve seen.
I got a better idea have the police actually go into those rough spots daily and talk with all the residents. Get to know the people and let the people know the polices presence in the community.
mike Im glad that you got a concealed weapon permit because its obvious the city council members aren’t gonna keep you safe while your doing your job.
Its not the LL’s job to make his tenants be civilized. Its funny because when a LL has to evict someone for not paying or any other reason. I dont see cities trying to help out the LL’s with the fees and time and BS court procedure. then a tenant leaves owing alot of money and probably even more in damages.
I think LL’s do enough already by giving people a place to stay. I’m sure whoever came up with these ideas/laws wouldn’t rent out rooms in their house to these people.
a bunch of :bs if you ask me
What the losers at the city of Raleigh doesn’t understand is, somebody has to house all the slobs, deadbeats, and losers of the area.
I think in Jan, when this ordinance goes into effect, I will just raise rent across the board 10 bucks per unit per month. That should compensate for the registration fee plus the occasional fine resulting from overzealous police officer, retired neighbor with nothing to do, and the most likely, tenant revenge. Think tenant on last week before setout, it’s the perfect revenge for them. Now I gotta pay a 500 dollar fine for two years and attend classes. They will be laughing for a while.
It sounds like a trickle down effect would be in place. If the LL’s have to pay more for business expenses, the cost will be reflected in the rents all over. I think they’re just making the market rents higher and tougher for the good hardworking tenants out there. Do they really think the LL’s are gonna eat this cost? It makes the people feel good that the city govt. is looking out for them. Then they scratch their head and wonder why rents are so high… :rolleyes
Another shining example of why I got out of residential rentals!!!
NOTHING BUT BS, day in, day out.
I don’t have these problems with commercial property.
Mike make a very good point.
HE GOES TO CITY COUNCIL MEETINGS!!!
The reason 99% of stupid, bullsh*t, ineffective laws are passed is because people don’t get involved and be heard. Mike did just that…even though he was ignored.
People have become to apathetic toward our government from the fed level all the way down to the smallest local levels. On average, every city council in the country has more council members attending than citizens. If you want to do your part in stopping ‘stupid’ and harmful laws from being past, GET INVOLVED!
GooD LucK! :beer
I stand corrected… he said ‘nuisance abatement board meeting’ NOT ‘city council meeting’. But the point is the same. If you don’t get involved and make your voice heard then you have no room to complain about laws passed.
GooD LucK! :beer
Foreclosure Negotiator - I believe Mike was asked to show up at the meeting… Something to do with an elephant, a trespasser, a prosecutor, and the color pink… :O)
Having said that - I agree with your point that we should get involved.
Have a good one!
That’s true, I was “INVITED” to attend the Nuisance Abatement Board meeting. In fact, I was the subject of the meeting! Oh, it’s nice to be in the spotlight - NOT!
However, Matt is 100% right, we do need to become involved in our local, state, and federal government as investors. Matt is also right, I do often attend city council meetings and other government meetings and I contribute to politicians who benefit my business. Frequent letters to the editor are another way that I contribute (although the politicians often don’t like the subject of my letters). Amazingly, after I wrote a stinging letter about how the local prosecutor wouldn’t keep a certain dangerous criminal in jail, the criminal I have been fighting has been put in jail and they’ve apparently lost the key! GOOD RIDDANCE TO THAT SCUMBAG!
I also called my IDIOT member of the house of representatives yesterday to give him my opinion on drilling from the continental shelf. “JUST DO IT” was my message to this idiot! What is it that makes politicians SOOOOO STUPID?
Mike
I can’t count the number of times that I have had to deal with the city, the county, or the state, and the result is that I am dealing with someone who does not care because there is no personal accountability. I’m trying to comply with your mandates, I’m supposed to get a response between date 1 and date 2, and when they don’t mail me, I missed the time frame. They didn’t mail me the response that I was told that I would get. It doesn’t matter.
You could spend your whole life chasing down inept people from the government for not doing their jobs, or attending public hearings or city council meetings, and spend all of your money on political action committees.
If I did my job the way that half of these people do theirs, I would be fired, sued and have my license to practice revoked. How is the landlord supposed to know if the tenant is a prostitute or a thief? Do they put it on their rental applications?
Mike is right, once again, this is just another example of the left wing push to implement socialism in the United States.
I believe that it was Ron White who said “you can’t fix stupid”
There has been talk of this in pittsburgh … yearly permit fee, 2 year inspections, etc etc … granted, there are some bad properties that are not taken care of that bring neighborhoods down, a blanket permit program is unfair, misguided and ineffective.
First of all, why cant we just enforce the current laws in place - it is easy to target the problem landlords and problem properties - they dont pay their taxes, they get police calls to their addresses, and their buildings will frequently have VISUAL violations … any decent landlord wants to take care of his property, so avoids most of these signals … but the problem people will have 4 foot high grass … so they can be easily picked out for enforcement.
So why create a “special program” to basically just enforce the current zoning and building codes and actually collect the fines - or better yet - cause people to take better care of their property. In our area, even if someone gets a violation it gets pleaded down in housing court to a nominal amount …
secondly - you think the people that are already violating current laws are going to step right up and pay the city a fee to come in and fine them !?!?! NO - only the good LLs will show up to be compliant (like any good landlord) som really this would, in a way, target the good people
sorry for the rant …
Something along these lines is coming (before city council soon) to Harrisburg, PA in the form of what has been termed blight bills. There are also two state level bills HB 2445 and SB 1291. From what I have gathered they could allow a neighbor or tenant to bring a district justice lawsuit against a property owner for alleged code violations. There is more to it, but it looks to give tenants even more rights. The final provision is especially scary as any property owned in a corporate name would require all owners to have photocopies of their driver’s licenses attached to the deed. I truly believe that some of these city and state governments are attacking all landlords as a way to address the problems they have with absentee and slum lords.
Ultimately, these will hit the consumer with increased rent and more strict screening guidelines. I suggest everyone join their local Property Owner Associates (in PA we have PROA and mroe localized chapters) to have a voice in these type of bills/ordinances.
Brett