Real Estate Consultant · Lansing, MI · Member since 2011 · 356 posts · 306 votes
Hi all,
To all landlords: Does your city/township require you to register your rental properties? If so, what are the costs associated with this process, including ongoing renewal, inspection costs, etc?
Murrysville, PA · Member since 2017 · 5 posts · 0 votes
7y
My municipality only required an occupancy permit when I moved out and rented my home. That did entail a safety inspection for smoke detectors and GFI's, and cost about $100. That will happen any time we change tenants.
Rental Property Investor · St. Petersburg, FL · Member since 2017 · 3k+ posts · 4k+ votes
7y
@Patrick Snyder no. I do have to pay a fee if the property is vacant, but I believe the registration was paid with the CO inspection and is not recurring
Rental Property Investor · Erie, PA · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
7y
I pay $40 per unit. They do an inspection every two years. I just heard landlords owe the city almost $250K in unpaid unit fees as the city is inept at going after unpaid bills (they're owed 3.2M in unpaid parking tickets!).
Rental Property Investor · Buffalo, NY · Member since 2017 · 206 posts · 185 votes
7y
I invest in small rural towns. They currently only require inspections of the large commercial rental properties. The fee is $200 for a 40 unit complex and done twice a year. Duplexes and single family rentals don't have to register or be inspected.
Rental Property Investor · Sacramento, CA · Member since 2015 · 1k+ posts · 893 votes
7y
@Patrick Snyder most of the cities I'm in require it as well, it's usually just 15-25$ per unit, per year. Depends on the city, of course. The cities I'm in don't require an inspection to register or renew registration. I'm quite wary of markets that do require this.
Rental Property Investor · Sioux Falls, SD · Member since 2015 · 9k+ posts · 18k+ votes
7y
My city requires registration of each property, but there is no charge. At best maybe a third of properties in the city are registered. Most landlords don't take any time to look into what is required.
Rental Property Investor · Indiana...mostly · Member since 2019 · 468 posts · 245 votes
7y
I've had a handful of municipalities and none have required this.
Perhaps they know somehow though because they had different property tax levels for personal residential, residential rental, and commercial.
I do have a college age child renting in a jurisdiction where I own no properties. There is a permit posted on the inside of the door of that rental house saying it is approved for rental occupancy and for a certain # of unrelated persons, i think. So that jurisdiction must require what you are asking about. I could send you a photo if that would help.
@Scott P. But as far as you know, there is no cost?
@Joe Splitrock So there is no penalty if the landlords are caught renting without registering?
The ordinance just says you must register or you cannot use the property for a rental. Both short term and long term rentals must be registered. Also interesting in our ordinance, you must provide the name of someone who lives within 50 miles of the city who is responsible to order maintenance. So if you were out of state, you would need a local property manager, handy man, realtor or friend. Someone who would get letters and calls from the city if code violation occurred.
I don't chance it. There is only a few people managing city code compliance and getting on their bad list would be trouble for any landlord.
Investor · New Orleans, LA · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 944 votes
7y
Orleans Parish (county) doesn't require any of that. I don't think Jefferson Parish (suburbs of NOLA) does either.
Sometime last year, there was talk of implementing a registration/inspection fee of $100/unit per year (though it may have been $200 for 2 years).
It was an exceedingly unpopular idea on both sides of the coin (landlords and tenants). Because it was obviously YET another blatant money grab by the city which would only result in hassles and higher rent for its citizens. Seemed like it died a quick death.
The only quasi-benefit proponents could even say was "it would force landlords to keep their properties in more habitable conditions". Countered with "but we already have a plethora of gov't. agencies tenants can go to and complain of substandard conditions."
@Jennifer T. I forgot that they tried to push that through. I was ready to go to war over that BS! That's just a gateway drug for rent control.
I admit to normally being lazy about political matters and usually don't write to politicians. But, that time, I did. I'm a member of the local REIA and they sent out a "call to arms" e-mail with the appropriate politicians contact info to voice my opposition. I sent e-mails to them as to why this was a bad policy for everyone.
Rental Property Investor · Davenport, FL · Member since 2013 · 285 posts · 220 votes
7y
Annual $25 for a business license, $5 each additional unit + $50 city code inspector every 3 years in Aberdeen, WA. We own properties in the neighboring towns too and they are not grabbing money from landlords :)
Rental Property Investor · Douglas County, MO · Member since 2014 · 1k+ posts · 1k+ votes
7y
I invest in a small town in rural Missouri. No registration, inspection, fees, or c of o required. There are also no permits required for rehabs, unless the building footprint is altered.
However, city hall does keep a (voluntary) list of landlords who are willing to have their phone number given out to people who call looking for places to rent. Our city workers are great, and do everything they can to help a landlord who wants to provide well-maintained, quality rentals.
Rental Property Investor · Los Angeles, CA · Member since 2017 · 2k+ posts · 5k+ votes
7y
Yep, have to pay something like $30 a year to register each unit under the RSO program even though the units are not subject to RSO. Of course that makes perfect sense to our idiot money hungry government bureaucrats.
We used to be able to pass this cost along to the renter on top of the rent listed in the lease. However, that extra $30 a year was just too much of a burden for renters to pay, so the government recently changed it so that the renter may only be billed 50% of the cost, provided it is listed in the lease, and provided you collect it only during the month that you paid it to the City, and provided you gave the tenant a minimum of X days advance notice, but not more than Y days advance notice. From landlords I talked to, almost no one ever collected this fee before and I suspect only large management companies that rent low cost rent controlled units track these fees in order to bill a tenant.
Rental Property Investor · Indiana...mostly · Member since 2019 · 468 posts · 245 votes
7y
@Patrick Snyder I may have given a confusing response...I've never been a landlord in a jurisdiction that requires rental properties to be registered. So, I've never incurred a cost to register one, or have it inspected, etc.
Real Estate Agent · Inglewood, CA · Member since 2015 · 294 posts · 150 votes
7y
@Patrick Snyder Inglewood charges $20 per unit, LA City charges about $30-35 per unit via the rent stabilization ordinance, and Compton charges $20 per unit.
A follow-up questions: What are the inspectors looking for when going through? Simple smoke detectors and GFCI operation, or are they picking apart everything from top to bottom?
Specialist · Easton, PA · Member since 2018 · 1k+ posts · 2k+ votes
7y
@Patrick Snyder
They are looking for standard safety stuff, and more usually haha. GFI outlets, working smoke detectors/Co2, handrails, windows that stay open without props, door knobs that latch, outlets wired properly and enough per room (2 in bedrooms on opposite walls), etc etc. mostly common sense stuff. In side by side duplexes they also look for fire walls in the attic (5/8”drywall on wall that adjoins other property), has to be taped and one coated.