Tuesday, December 16, 2008

Landlord Law Enforcement

It appears as though there is already a law on the books in Racine that permits the city to fine lanlords for the trangressions of their tenants. In today's JT local section, one Diana DeChenne was contesting a nuisance citation issued to her because her tenant allegedly fixes cars commercially in the garage. DeChenne asked, rather sensibly, why she was receiving a citation when her tenant has not, to which the judge replied that it was the law. For DeChenne to be in compliance with the law she must make an effort to prevent her tenant from fixing cars commercially.

Wow! So DeChenne must now become part time investigator and law enforcement official. She is now required to somehow detirmine if her tenant is recieving payment for his work or whether he is working on his own car or doing a favor for a friend or whatever. Perhaps she should set up a sting operation, FBI style, then swoop in arrest her tenant, cuffing him to the steering wheel.

As ridiculous as is the present law, the city is considering a change that would, in addition to requiring lanlords to become unpaid law enforcers, seek to prevent them from having their day in court. "If a revised ordinance passes it would send nuisance cases to the Public Safety and Licensing Committee and City Council rather than to Municipal Court."

And so the city's attacks on property owners continues.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Yes, she, along with most other landlords who value their investments, should investigate potential hazards that could lower their value or destroy it all together. You feel this is absurd for property owners to not be responsible for their properties?

if she was smart, she would have done this info check herself before the government intervened. Landlords, at least smart ones, perform at least some level of due diligence in deciding how much of a potential hazard a tenant will be on the landlord's investment.

Not only should she do this investigation with ALL tenants just for peace of mind, she should be concerned that this activity of working on cars is a violation of the insurance policy AND the mortgage contract of which their are much worse consequences.

Do you think Regency Mall allows its tenants inside the mall to operate porn shops?

Anonymous said...

Its great to be back!

Denis Navratil said...

Landlords should be responsible for there properties, tenants should be responsible for their behavior and government should be responsible for law enforcement. How do you know this landlord didn't do a background check? Maybe he has an extensive criminal history of working on cars for profit but has promised to turn his life around. Don't you think people should get a second chance CT? Welcome back CT.