Ask Del Now!DEL: Well, my friends, you know over the last 20 years now I’ve been preaching that you should operate your properties in a clean, functional manner, and that you should make sure that your tenants are living in a habitable environment.
Over the years I think we all know that there have been people that do not provide that type of habitability in their units, in their apartment complexes, and because of that laws get passed to try to protect the tenants from bad landlords. You know, it’s one of those things where nobody likes to be legislated into a corner where we have to do things, but it’s always because of the bad people.
That’s why I have always pushed for everyone that I know to go join the Houston Apartment Association or the Texas or the National Apartment Association because they have a way of teaching you the right things that need to be done.
But lo and behold, no matter how hard we pushed and tried over the years to keep everybody going in that direction, it has come to a head. And now the city has passed an ordinance where we are going to have habitability inspections on a more regular basis.
This is such an important issue for everybody out there that owns three or more units as a triplex or larger that you need to be aware of this—so do not change your dial. This is a conversation that you do not want to miss.
With me today here is Andy Teas who is the public affairs officer for HAA. And also with us here is Officer D.J. Anders who goes by Doug, and he is city Mayor White’s I guess front-runner on this project. So I am going to turn it over to these gentlemen to explain to us — if you would, Andy, you can take over — what is this new ordinance on the Houston multi-family habitability inspection? What is it and when does it start?
ANDY: Thanks, Del. It’s a new ordinance that’s going to combine some of the inspections that the city really has always done into one inspection that will hopefully be more efficient and more doable, frankly, for the city and also for owners as well.
For the first time they are going to inspect properties with as few as three units. So this is going to be a huge new program, and it’s going to take the city a long time to get through it. But basically every property with three or more units in the city of Houston is going to be inspected on a perhaps once every four year basis for basic habitability, basic safety and health items.
DEL: All right. That seems like quite a daunting job, Doug, when we think about — there’s what, 4,000 apartment complexes in the Houston area?
DOUG: Roughly there are about 4,000 apartments.
ANDY: I am not hearing you.
DEL: We had better get our guys down here to turn you up. Andy, let’s go back over this here now. Explain to us again in a little bit more detail how this thing came about and what it’s going to actually mean for us.
ANDY: When Mayor White took office one of the things that he really wanted to do was find a way for the city to be more focused and more efficient when it comes to inspecting problem apartment properties. He wanted to find a more efficient way for the city to inspect for basic maintenance. The city has always inspected apartments, but they’ve had different agencies inspecting for different things. They weren’t always very well-coordinated. He really wanted to put everything into one program that would focus on the things that really matter—basic safety, electrical safety, plumbing safety, things like that.
DEL: And from what I’ve heard so far—and everything I’ve read about it—these are not new inspections. This is not something new and onerous. This is the same old stuff just combined into a different package.
ANDY: It really is. There’s nothing that’s on the checklist that’s new to this checklist probably in the last 20 years. Everything that they’ll be inspecting for are things that have been in the building code, the mechanical code, the electrical code, the plumbing code for decades. But this is the first time that they’ve had a team of professional inspectors that would make regular inspections of existing properties for these things.
DEL: All right. Let’s talk about when this thing comes into effect.
ANDY: The ordinance was passed last month. There’s an inspection period that starts at the beginning of December and runs through the end of January. And this is important and something that all your listeners, all of your investors need to know—starting on December 1st and then running for the next two months you’re going to need to reregister your properties.
Even if you’ve already registered under the crime ordinance, which applied to everybody with ten units or more, this is all of those people plus the people down to three units—they’re going to need to register their properties with the city.
There will be a website. Registration is free. The additional benefit of registering is that once you’re registered, all of your employees are deemed to have met their burden under state law to disclose ownership to the city. That means that an inspector could no longer cite one of your employees personally, criminally for a code violation, which always used to be a problem in the past.
DEL: Okay. Now, Doug, is your mike still down?
DOUG: Are we up?
DEL: You’re up. Got you finally. Sorry about that. We apologize. Doug, let’s go into this situation here for just a second. When we were talking earlier you spoke about the fact that there were going to be a few requirements when you sign up, when you register. Could you go over those for us?
DOUG: Yes. There’s going to be some information, and it’s going to be very vital to the registration process. Now, the registration is to prepare the list for prioritization of the inspection cycle. It will be one time. You’ll get on the list this year. And as we go through the list—when we complete the list—you’ll come back up on the cycle the next time around.
Important information that the managers and the owners should be aware of, they’re going to ask for your Harris County tax appraisal number—your Fort Bend County or your Montgomery County if you’re in the city. They’ll also ask for your occupancy permit numbers. Occupancy permits are issued to each building on the property, and as such you may have more than one occupancy permit. So you need to start finding those occupancy permits or the life safety compliance certificate numbers.
They’re going to ask you for some information on the building tract. What’s the building’s primary use? Is there a boiler room? Is it a pool house? Is it residential? And ask you to identify the buildings and what their usage is. And this is all to prioritize and assist us in planning the inspection.
We have 4,000 properties to go to. We have five inspection teams right now in two-man inspection teams that will be doing that. We’ve always had a reactive process where if people complained we would inspect. This is the first time we get this periodic cyclic inspection in place. So all that information’s going to help us.
DEL: All right. So we have to register again starting December 1st and before January 31st; is that correct?
ANDY: That’s correct.
DOUG: That’s correct.
DEL: And we then will see these inspections—these proactive ones—starting in April, you said?
DOUG: April 1 the proactive inspection cycles will start. And once we start inspecting, we will then repeat it either three, four or five years down the road. When we get through the first phase we’ll repeat it. Ideally it will take us a little longer in the first cycle. We’ll clean it up after that.
DEL: All right. Well, we’re going to come back with more information on this topic.
Popularity: unranked [?]
