CITY TO SHY APARTMENT OWNERS: SHOW US YOUR STUFF! The Houston Apartment Association reports that only about 800 properties have been registered so far at the city’s new Multifamily Rental Property website. Under new regulations passed by City Council in November aimed at eliminating dangerous conditions at apartment complexes, all rental properties consisting of 3 or more units on a single lot are required to be registered by the end of January — or face fines. Inspections will begin in April. [HAA; registration website]
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Well, you pass a silly ordinance that will do nothing and you get response rates like this.
KJB434- The registration requirement is just one part of this ordinance. The new ordinance requires inspections of properties on a regular cycle. Currently, inspections of properties are only done on a complaint driven basis.
Unlike the earlier registration ordinance, this affects properties down to 3 units (the earlier one only included those with 10 + units).
Here is the HBJ article with more info http://ow.ly/YXr1
Here is the Chron’s blog post with more info
http://ow.ly/YXuR
Who does the inspection? The city? If they do, the ordinance will do nothing.
It comes down to renter beware.
It comes down to renter beware.
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It does indeed. And having been to justice court on appeal with an HAA attorney representing the landlord for a property that I later was told didn’t even have an occupancy permit in a wrongful eviction suit, one of three filed on tenants after three tenants filed complaints with the city, it’s also renter beware of any landlord who is a member of HAA.
Matt Mystery,
sorry you had that experience. While we have members who are attorneys, none work for HAA.
We want the City to get those properties without the Life Safety Appendix permitted asap, that is why we supported decreasing compliance time from 2 years to 6 months.
No one hates slum lords more than good owners.
While we have members who are attorneys, none work for HAA.
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The general counsel for HAA doesn’t work for HAA?
And by the way that same attorney who doesn’t work for HAA but is the general counsel was the attorney of record in the appeal of one of the other wrongful evictions which involved the wrongful eviction of someone with AIDS.
Real good “pr” for HAA.
It will be interesting to see if the city actually fines complexes that haven’t registered by the 31st and which complexes are fined. The city doesn’t allow access to the list of registered complexes for some reason. That an indication in itself of how the city has moved to remove any public access to the complaint process.
If you go to the city website and check the “checklist” the inspections are obviously all exterior. So the city doesn’t know if there are problems within the individual units. Unless a tenant complains. And the city has enacted an ordinance that basically doesn’t give a tenant any basis to complain. Which of course was the purpose of the ordinance.
“Your complex passed inspection.” End of that.