Landlords skipping license fee will face $1,000 penalty

The city's chief building official isn't backing down: Landlords must obtain a new, one-time landlord license for $50 and must provide a current list of their rental properties with the city by Oct. 31 or they will face a $1,000-a-month penalty, Matt Widner, the head of the city's Code Enforcement Division, promised on Wednesday.

The new license fee, updated property list and stiff penalty are intended, in part, to help the city better track rental units while making sure all landlords are complying with the city's regular rental inspection program, the city has said.

“It is our intention to proceed with penalties as adopted,” Widner emphasized.

The comments came after his office noted Wednesday that so far only 538 landlords had complied with the city's new landlord ordinance, which the City Council adopted in July.

Widner said the 500-plus number “is not where we should be at this point,” though Al Pansegrau, the city's chief housing inspector, said Wednesday that it's not entirely clear how many landlords actually are operating in the city.

Some estimates have been as high as 4,000, Pansegrau said, though he said the number might be half of that. His office and Landlords of Linn County both agree that the city may have as many as 23,000 rental units.

One piece of good news: Sixty of the 538 landlords that have registered to date under the new city ordinance are ones who had not been registered under the city's old rules, Pansegrau said.

Widner said some landlords may be waiting until the registration deadline nears while others may sit by and hope that a lawsuit filed in late July by Landlords of Linn County will set the city's new ordinance aside.

Dick Rehman, who rents 46 units as Rehman Enterprises LC and who has lent his name to the lawsuit against the city, said 500-plus registered landlords represented only a “mere pittance” of the city's landlord numbers “at this late date before we go into this very high penalty.”

Rehman has paid his one-time $50 license fee and has registered his units, although not without noting that the registration fees, which are being grandfathered in for previously registered properties, will double over what they had been.

Even so, Rehman encouraged landlords to pay the one-time license fee and to register their properties, saying both requirements are sure to remain even if the landlords succeed in their lawsuit.

In part, the lawsuit is focused on the ordinance's requirement that landlords and tenants sign a “crime-free” addendum as part of each lease. The landlords think the addendum is vague and, as Rehman said, gives the city power in what he said is a private contract between a landlord and tenant.

Rehman said information provided by landlords to the city will help the city update its database of properties and landlords and improve the city's code-enforcement operation as a result, he said.

“It's not unreasonable for them to require the information,” Rehman said. “I can live with that, and any responsible landlord should do that.

“We object to parts of (the new ordinance), but that doesn't mean other parts aren't sound.”