The City of Mount Dora recently passed an ordinance requiring all owners of rental property to obtain "Rental Licenses". This new license requires the property owner to have city inspections once every 3 years and every time a new tenant moves in. It also requires the property owner to pay annual licensing fees. You can read more on this on the City of Mount Dora's website and in the Orlando Sentinel.
The intent of this ordinance besides to generate more revenue to the city is to keep slumlords in line. I do not know if an ordinance like this will do that though. The problem is not just with the slumlords, but also with the tenants that they rent to. Even nasty people have to live somewhere. It does not take into consideration that some landlords do a fine job of maintaining their rentals and some owner occupant homeowners allow their home to fall into disrepair. Some of the nastiest run down homes I have seen are owner occupied properties. At least a landlord has some financial incentive to keep the tenants from tearing up his property. Remember the Seminole County "Junk Man", he was an owner occupant.
The big issue is how to enforce this ordinance. How does the city know when a tenant turnover occurs? Considering that in most cities about 20-30% of all properties are non-owner occupied rentals or businesses, the city will have to police thousands of rental properties in order to enforce this ordinance.
The Lake County Association of Realtors and many local landlords fought this ordinance's approval, but it was passed and is now in effect. This is a major negative blow to real estate investors and Realtors in Mount Dora because of the increased fees and regulations that this will cause.
Similar ordinances have already been passed in the cities of Deltona and Cocoa during 2007. The cities of Orlando and Winter Park have rejected similar proposals because the policing of them would be to burdensome. It will be interesting to see how this will play out, but it definitely is not a good thing from a real estate investment point of view.
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Rob Arnold, ABR, CPL, CRB, GRI, Managing real estate broker, Licensed mortgage broker, Notary Public
407-389-7318 / 1-877-389-7318 www.SDRhouses.com/ www.WeBuyHousesFlorida.com/
Your full service and investor friendly Realtor in Orlando. Learn to invest in Central Florida real estate and Orlando real estate. Investor mentoring and counseling available. I also provide flat fee MLS listings, For Sale By Owner, and menu-based services in most parts of Central & South Florida, the Space Coast, and the Treasure Coast including Orlando, Tampa, Miami-Dade, Fort Lauderdale, West Palm Beach, Ocala, Volusia, and Brevard.
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Rob Arnold - Your full service and investor friendly Realtor ® in Orlando and Central Florida.
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Hi Rob,
Yikes, looks like everyone is looking to generate more incomes. Has your Assoc. been any help on this issue?
Illinois and Florida (the last I knew) are the only states that permit blind trusts. So what bank trust departments will put up with this? The only individuals that will suffer are the small landlords. In Illinois, we get around the problem by imposing fines for building violations which affect trustees.
Your local city fathers are barking up the wrong trees. Its a lot cheaper to chase building code violations than people.
Joe - There are already zoning and code enforcement laws in place that could easily be enforced if people are renting out space illegally.
Lynda - Unfortunately this is not in my association's territory it is just across the county line. The local association in that county vehemently opposed the legislation, but still could not stop its passage.
David - Our local code enforcement laws go after the property and the person. The trustee by law is not affected in their personal capacity, so they would be immune to any lien except for that 1 property.
Lisa - Our tax dollars at work once again. What can I say?
Terry - You already cannot get most single-family houses or duplexes to bring a positive cash flow. What this sort of ordinance might cause is a bunch of abandonned buildings.
I have too many thoughts to even think about commenting on this. but I will give a few.
Okay, I am done but I am sure there are more.
http://www.properties.ky