Kennett cracks down on unregistered rental properties with new enforcement measures

KENNETT, Mo. - Property owners who fail to register their rental units can expect warning letters from the Kennett Code Enforcement Department this week.

And citations follow that could result in fines up to $1,000 if landlords fail to comply within 10 days, said Kennett Code Enforcement Officer Victor Mode on Tuesday.

The Kennett City Council last year adopted ordinance No. 3099, governing "Licensing and Inspection of Rental Housing Units."

The ordinance calls for landlords to register their rental properties for business licenses, and for tenants to apply for occupancy permits, Mode explained.

Landlords had until late October of last year to comply.

Now, they have 10 days after receipt of warning notices before citations, court appearances, and fines.

Registering properties costs nothing, a city official confirmed.

However, tenants are on the hook for $50 when applying for a certificate of occupancy, the official said.

That triggers the city's code enforcement department's initial inspection. If the property fails, owners have a short time to affect repairs and a second inspection follows.

If the property fails the second inspection and a third is required, accountability then reverts to property owners, and they are charged $50 for the inspection, plus the costs of repairs.

It's a semi-controversial program that is years in the making, Mode noted.

"It's all about safety," Mode said. "Safety, security and sanitation."

The inspection checklist is extensive and nearly 100 percent consistent across the board, room to room, exteriors to interiors.

With a few exceptions, Mode explained.

"There are a few differences," he said. "Bathrooms must have one plug, and if it's within six feet of water it has to be ground faulted.

"Everything is just the minimum of whatever it takes to be habitable," he added.

Kennett's tenant-to-homeowner ratio is about 40-60, a city councilor told The Delta Dunklin Democrat.

And three people in the business of leasing homes own about 1,000 units in the city limits, a Kennett businessman said Tuesday.

So far, about 80 percent of first-time inspections fail, Mode agreed.

"But it's not necessarily a hard fail," Mode said. "Like the property might just need a smoke detector.

"One," he continued. "It's something that can be fixed in 10 minutes. And we just go on."

Violations might be minor, like smoke detectors in living rooms and all bedrooms, as Mode described.

Others are more serious, he said.

"One of our big things, if there's trash in the yard, it's gonna fail," he said. "Right now, with the cold weather, landlords are kicking about heat.

"You know, why would you move someone in when it's required that the property owner supplies heat?" he asked. "And then, maybe supply somebody with a space heater and say, 'There's your heat?' That's not an approved heat source. They try to get by like that, and they've been getting away with it for years because we've not had this inspection program."

Tenants have growled a bit about the $50 occupancy permit and inspection fee, Mode added.

"Formerly, people who moved to Kennett and wanted to rent a home would pay the landlord first month, last month, and a security deposit, or whatever their agreements were," Mode explained. "They'd get a rent receipt from the landlord and present that to KBPW to have their utilities turned on.

"Now, we know it's a little different," he added. "Now, you have to have a passed, $50 inspection. We send that report to KBPW, and that goes into their system. When they pull it up, if the home has passed inspection, they can have their utilities turned on. So, the utility knows who owns the home and who is a tenant living in it. And we have a way to cross-reference that now. We didn't have that before. It's just a way to add checks and balances and provide both parties, the landlord and the tenant, some security. It's a positive thing for everybody."

The program benefits both parties, Mode insisted.

"Before this program, we could do a rental inspection," he noted. "But we had to be called and invited in by the tenant.

"Nine times out of 10, when they would call us, the home was in bad shape, and we would send that owner a letter," he added. "Then, the tenant got an eviction notice. So, renters knew if they called and complained, they possibly would be evicted. It hindered the reporting process. This program does away with that."

That could get pricey for landlords, conditionally, Mode said. Especially for those who own apartment complexes that require extensive maintenance.

"Each individual address, each apartment, is defined as a home," he explained. "So if someone owns an apartment building and there are 30 units, they own 30 homes, and each one is subject to inspection."

Trailer parks are especially troublesome, or could be, Mode said.

"The things we've run into recently are issues at trailer parks," he said. "The few trailer parks we have here in town, there are questions of, 'Do the owners of trailer parks have to register all those trailers?'

"Well, the trailers are individually owned," he continued. "Owned by someone else. And the trailer park owners just lease the lot. So they won't be responsible for registering all that. It will be the responsibility of each individual trailer owner who rents it out. That's hard to find. I can't go up to a trailer and know who owns it. Because there's no property record for it."

As of last week, more than two dozen landlords were non-compliant.

And that number hasn't improved, Mode said.

"We have around 30," he said. "Some of them might only have two properties.

"Some may have 10 or 20 or 100," he emphasized. "Landlords live here. Some of them may just be hesitating because they've got their properties rented already, and they're kind of waiting. We need to get them registered so there's a heads up, and we need to attach a name to an address."

So even though a handful of property owners who rent to tenants have failed to register their properties, the overall feedback to date is positive, Mode said.

"It's been a successful program," Mode noted. "From what I've heard, anyway.

"Everybody thinks that it's going to be great," he continued. "I've talked to several landlords who love the idea, because it's going to protect their property. They like the idea that as people move out and move into somewhere else, the new place is going to be maintained. The old one must be rentable, and that's the tenant's responsibility. They must reconcile that with the owner before they can move out. So, the owner will be the one that conducts their exit walk-through, their exit inspections. That way, if they leave owing rent, the place is torn up and there's trash piled everywhere, they have to fix that before they move somewhere else. So if someone, say puts a hole in a wall, that'll have to be fixed. And the landlord can say, 'That's going to cost me $200 to fix,' and they can deduct that amount from their security deposit, or come to some agreement before that tenant can rent anywhere else in town."

If a property has one issue, it usually has more, the inspector explained.

"There are a lot of bad properties out there," he said. "In the past when we would get called for an inspection, we might have gone into a house and the tenant say, 'Don't step there. There's a hole in the floor under that carpet.'

"I went into one here a while back," he added. "And there was no floor in the bathroom. No floor at all. You'd have to walk on the floor joists to get to the toilet. That's unacceptable. We have a lot of poverty around here. But just because people might be poor, doesn't mean they have to live in squalor. Landlords are there to provide safe, habitable places to live, and safe environments. And the homes are considered businesses. That's why we started requiring business licenses for landlords."

A few cities in the Bootheel instituted such programs, and a number of others contacted Mode to inquire about Kennett's parameters and conditions.

"We've received phone calls from at least five other communities," he said. "Piggott, Arkansas, called just yesterday and Poplar Bluff called.

"Those are two that I can think of right off hand," he added. "They want to know if they can have copies of our ordinance, our business licenses for landlords, occupancy permits for tenants, and our inspection checklists. Because they've wanted to do something for years and just couldn't figure out how to get it started. I think that's pretty great."

And Mode noted those cities might be acting proactively.

"The thing they're probably looking at, which might be the cause of some of our troubles, are tenants that are here to just be here and move from place to place," he said. "Tear places up and trash them.

"Those people are going to move somewhere else," he warned. "Say, out of Kennett. These communities are looking ahead and thinking, 'These trashy people who can't rent at Kennett anymore are coming here,' and they want to protect themselves from that."

Warning notices were processed Tuesday, Mode said.

"They'll probably go out Wednesday or Thursday," he said.

Still, Mode has high hopes for the program, property owners, and tenants.

"I've been doing this job for 15 years," he said. "And probably tried to start this program 14 years ago.

"We finally got it done," he added. "And I think, and most people think, it's a great program."