Free Landlord-Tenant Law Seminar To Be Held On October 24, 2009

On Saturday October 24, 2009 from 9:30 am - 4:30 pm at the UWM Union Ballroom the UW-Milwaukee COAST and the City of Milwaukee Department of Neighborhood Services will be offering a free landlord-tenant law seminar to the public. This seminar is NOT restricted to just landlords and tenants in the UW-M area.

On behalf of the AASEW, I will be presenting a portion of the seminar on the topics of causes for eviction, notices terminating tenancy and the eviction process. Additional topics that will be covered include applicant screening, rental documents, management of rental properties, fair housing issues, DNS inspection process, and the role of law enforcement.

For more detailed information regarding who the presenters will be and how to register please refer to the attached flyer.

DON'T MISS AASEW'S 10th ANNUAL LANDLORD TRADESHOW THIS WEDNESDAY (9-16-09)

The Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin (AASEW) is hosting its 10th Annual Tradeshow this Wednesday, September 16, 2009, from 12 noon - 7 pm. If you are a rental propertyowner, manager or investor you will not want to miss this FREE tradeshow

It will be held at Serb Hall which is located at 5101 W. Oklanhoma Avenue.

The admission is FREE.

Food and snacks will be offerred.

Many vendors that support the rental housing industry will be on hand to answer your questions, such as Wisconsin Legal Blank Co.,, Giertsen Company of Wisconsin, Inc., Oak Creek Plumbing, Inc. and many more.

There will also be many seminars on topics such as: the new lead paint renovation rules, causes for eviction and notices terminating tenancy, how to collect tenant debt, nuisance properties, execution of writs of assistance (eviction) by the Sheriff, and how to benefit from 1031 exchanges and more. The seminars will be followed by a Town Hall Meeting (no, it won't be about health care) in which 3 members of the industry will answer your questions.

For more information and details please go to www.LandlordTradeShow.com

Milwaukee to Propose Landlord Licensing and Mandatory Interior Inspections of Rental Property

The city of Milwaukee is planning on introducing a new ordinance that will require rental property owners in certain parts of the city to license their rental properties and submit to mandatory interior inspections by the Department of Neighborhood Services (DNS).

Many of the AASEW board members have been having regular monthly meetings with the new DNS Commissioner Art Dahlberg. During a recent meeting Mr. Dahlberg informed us that in the near future he will be pushing for some form of residential rental inspection program (a.k.a "Landlord Licensing") for portions of the city. During a meeting with Alderman Bob Donovan it was confirmed that this program was in the works and that the city's forthcoming budget already has money earmarked for the program.

Under this program DNS would target certain areas of the city which they consider to be "blighted" or which will soon become "blighted" if something is not done. Other factors that would be considered in determining what areas to target would be the age of the housing stock, the percentage of rental units to owner occupied properties, and the history of complaints in the neighborhood. Mr. Dahlberg indicated that the area of the city that would most likely be addressed first would be the east side near UWM due to the large number of illegally converted dwelling units and poorly maintained properties.

The goal of the program would allegedly be for the owners and the city building inspectors to work together to better the rental housing stock with the building inspectors becoming a resource for rental property owners.

While the specific details were not provided to me, any proposed program will most certainly contain provisions such as the following:

- A requirement that all rental property owners in the targeted area pay a fee to the city for each unit that they own.

- A requirement that rental property owners allow the city building inspectors to conduct mandatory inspections of the interiors of each of their rental properties that are located within the targeted area.

- If no code violations are found then the rental property would receive a certificate of code compliance which would allow the owner to rent out the unit for a period of time until the next mandatory interior inspection would be required.

- If code violations were to be found in the rental property then the owner would be denied a certificate of code compliance (thus preventing the unit from being rented) until the violations were corrected. Depending on the the number and severity of the violations, the rental property owner would be required to submit to an increased number of interior inspections during the ensuing months until the city would determine that the rental property was safe.

While this new program would only focus on the UWM area initially, other areas of town were also mentioned (the north side of Milwaukee for instance) as being targeted eventually. It is fairly obvious that the end goal would be to have all rental properties within the city under this program.

I personally am not in favor of this program and I can't imagine that many landlords would be. If passed this new ordinance will be yet another regulation on rental property owners - a group that is already overly regulated. I can't imagine that tenants are going to enjoy this invasion of their privacy either. Not to mention that the additional costs to landlords will most likely be passed on to the tenant by increased rents. I also personally have difficulty with the fact that the city regularly threatens to cut the number of police, refuse overtime for police, eliminate the number of firemen at ladder companies, and close libraries, but yet they are willing to provide additional money for the hiring of more building inspectors.

While the alleged goal of this residential rental recording program is to improve the quality of the housing stock in the city I can't help but think that it will also be a source of revenue for a city that allegedly is broke.

This proposed ordinance will be addressed in more detail in my future posts.

To read why this program is not a good idea click here.

To read the text of a study conducted by the LaFollette Institute in 2002 on whether or not Landlord Licensing should be implemented in Milwaukee click here. To read a summary of the the study concluding that Landlord Licensing would casue more harm then good if implemented in Milwaukee click here.

For more information go to www.rentalinspectionprogram.com

AASEW Has New Online Forum at MeetUp.com

The Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin (AASEW) has recently joined MeetUp.com. Registration and participation is free.

Below is the introductory message by AASEW Board member and organizer, Tim Ballering:

Welcome to the Apartment Association of Southeastern WI. Thank you for joining our MeetUp group.

Our objective is to help members become more successful landlords, investors and managers.

We are the oldest and largest landlord group in Southeastern WI. Members include many larger owners, mom and pop owners, businesses that provide services to the rental housing industry, and many of the best landlord / tenant and real estate attorneys in the state.

The Association provides training in evictions, collections and other aspects necessary for you to succeed. Many of our business members offer discounts to Association members.

We also provide discounted tenant screening and bad debt reporting for our members.

We provide free eviction notices to members as well as other forms.

We are a nonprofit, member managed association since 1977.

We look forward to meeting you.

The Association's webpage

www.apartmentassoc.org

Have landlord or real estate questions? Join the discussion at:

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/ApartmentAssoc

SSN Validator: Free Website That Allows You to Verify A Social Security Number

I attended last night's AASEW monthly meeting which featured Kathy Huens of Landlord Services, LLC as the main speaker. Landlord Services, LLC is a company that provides credit reports to landlords to assist them in the screening process of rental applicants. Landlord Services, LLC is a business member of the AASEW and comes highly reccomended. During Kathy's speech she alerted the audience to a website that allows you to verify certain information regarding a person's social security number.

SSN Validator allows you to input a person's social security number and will then provide you with basic information such as:

- Has that SSN been issued or not,

- Approximate date when the SSN was issued,

- State in which the SSN was issued,

- Whether or not the person that was issued that SSN is deceased.

This website is completely free. I have added this site to my list of websites to assist you during the screening process. Use of this website will certainly assist a landlord in determining whether or not a SSN supplied by a prospective tenant is valid. For instance if the applicant appears to be between the age range of 20-30 years old and the SSN Validator indicates that the SSN was issued in 1950 -- you now have a red flag and will need to do some more due dilligence on that applicant. Or suppose that after inputting the rental applicant's SSN you are notified that the person to whom that SSN was issued is deceased - you have now been alerted to the possibility that your applicant has assumed another's identity.

I love free tools that assist me in evaluating my rental applicants. Thanks Kathy!

AASEW'S Annual Landlord Tradeshow To Be Held On September 16th at Serb Hall

The Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin's (AASEW) 10th Annual Landlord Tradeshow and Seminar will be held on Wednesday, September 16, 2009 from 12 noon - 7 pm at American Serb Hall (5101 W. Oklahoma Ave, Milwaukee).

Admission is free for rental property owners and potential owners. Free food and snacks will be offerred. This is a great event for landlords, future landlords, property managers, real estate investors, and anyone else interested in learning how to succeed in today's real estate market.

Attendees will learn how to run their rental properties with more profit and less hassle. They will also have the opportunity to meet the vendors that rental property owners use on a regular basis.

Seminars that will be presented include:

- "How To Collect Tenant Bad Debt" by Bill Gray of Rent Recovery Services

- "Causes for Eviction: Which Notice To Use When" by Tristan Pettit, Esq. of Petrie & Stocking S.C.

- "New Lead Paint Renovation Rules" by Ada Duffy of Milwaukee Lead and Asbestos Center

- "How To Improve the Eviction Process" by the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department

- "How To Benefit from a 1031 Exchange" by Patrick Harrington, Esq. of M&I 1031 Exchange Service

- Town Hall Meeting - Get Answers to Your Rental Property Questions featuring: Attorney Tristan R. Pettit of Petrie & Stocking S.C. and AASEW President, Attorney Heiner Giese of Giese & Weiden LLC and AASEW's general counsel, and Susan Ipsarides, Portfolio Director for StuartCo.

For more information go to www.LandlordTradeShow.com

You will not want to miss this! Hope to see you there.

Milwaukee's Chronic Nuisance Ordinance and It's Improper Use Against Landlords

The City of Milwaukee's Chronic Nuisance Ordinance (80-10) is a thorn in the side of many landlords. Essentially the ordinance says that if your property generates more than 3 calls for police service for "nuisance activities" within a 30 day period that the city will charge you for the costs associated with abating the alleged nuisance.

Nuisance activities include the following: harassment, disorderly conduct, battery, indecent exposure, prostitution, littering, theft, possession, manufacture or delivery of drugs, gambling, illegal possession of firearms, keeping a dangerous animal, trespass to land, conspiracy to commit a crime, discharge of a firearm, excessive noise, loitering, public drinking, sale of liquor, possession of counterfeit items, possession or selling of drug paraphenalia, selling or giving tobacco products to children, misuse of emergency telephone numbers, harboring an animal that causes a disturbance, illegal use or sale of fireworks, and truancy. In summary, a nuisance activity is pretty much anything and everything you can think of.

If your rental property is being used as a drug house or is the headquarters for a gang or if you are allowing tenant to run a house of prostitution out of your apartment complex then I agree that your property is more than likely occupying more than its fair share of the police department's time and resources and that the property may be a chronic nuisance. But this is not the only -- nor is it the typical -- situation in which this ordinance is being used against landlords.

Oftentimes landlords are having fines added to their property tax bill or being contacted by the police becasue a tenant called 911 to report a legitimate crime, or because a neighbor (who is mad that they live next to an apartment complex) called the police because s/he doesn't like it when the tenants stand and talk in front of the building, or my all-time favorite, a person (not a tenant or the owner) walked by the rental property and decided to drop their hamburger wrapper on the lawn. All of the above instances qualify as nuisance activities under Milwaukee's ordinance and can result in a property being declared a chronic nuisance.

I have heard from many landlords -- both in my capacity as an attorney representing landlords and as the president of the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin (AASEW) -- about circumstances in which they have been contacted by the police as a result of examples similar to those mentioned above. I recently received an email from a new AASEW member who was very upset at being in such a situation and contacted the AASEW for assistance and guidance. I have reproduced the member's email, with his permission, ommitting his name and the property address to protect his identity.

I own a 30 unit building at __________________. Last December there were 2 family arguments in which police were called, and a misdialed 911 call. According to the City's Nuisance Ordinance, 3 or more nuisance calls in any 30 day period from a property puts the owner on a list for "supervision" from the district's community liaison officer for a full 12 months. The owner must submit a plan for abatement for acceptance by MPD, fully execute the plan in a timely manner, check for nuisance incidents monthly at MPD Public Records office, and then submit a report and action plan for abatement for each incident.

My plan was approved and executed. I do have continuing nuisance incidents occurring though, but so far only one was a repeat from the same tenant. She had called the police to report that her son was receiving death threats. If my son where receiving death threats, I'd call the police too, but the community liaison officer told me that that was considered a nuisance, and strongly implied that if I didn't deal with it, the property would be designated as a Chronic Nuisance. So, against my better judgment, I filed an eviction. Of course, I was laughed out of court. As any landlord will tell you, a failed eviction action usually means the situation will deteriorate. This is not good business, but the fact is I'm being strong-armed by MPD to act.

I have taken absolutely EVERY action I was directed to take, or suggested I take, by MPD and more. I have responded to nuisance reports in as heavy-handed ways I can muster, with warnings, fines, and 5 Day Notices, to try and satisfy MPD. However, I feel like I'm being railroaded, and no matter what I do MPD will designate it as a Chronic Nuisance.

Please understand that, while my building is by no means the "Ritz", it is also by no means a slum either. Nor am I a slum landlord. This is a nice building in which we have invested heavily, increasing the value, as well as the tax collections for the City of Milwaukee. We turned this building around from a bad property in 2003, with crappy tenants who avoided calling the police like the plague, to a rehabbed property with much better tenants with higher expectations and no qualms about calling the police to demand service (which I pay for).

My understanding is that this ordinance was originally enacted to give the City some ammunition against irresponsible landlords. I fear that MPD is using the ordinance to coerce landlords to enforce the law in their stead. I have asked MPD on several occasions, both verbally and in writing, to provide me with information regarding any citations given to people who are involved in the nuisance activity, and I have gotten none. The ordinance extends to 911 abuse. Why landlords are put in a position where they are required by MPD to enforce 911 abuse is a mystery to me. Why not fine AT&T - it's their line! The whole thing boils down to MPD's inability to enforce the laws, and the abdication of their enforcement responsibilities in favor of coercing landlords to do their job for them, under threat of fines. The whole thing is, in a word, insane. Even if a landlord is successful in eviction someone, the problem just goes somewhere else anyway.

The final insult to me is the fact that MPD's definition of "property" may be a single family home, or a 30 unit building like mine. I get the same 3 call limit per month for 30 families as a single family in a regular house. I pay 30 times more taxes than the single family owner, but I receive 1/30th of the service quota. In my opinion this is an impossible and patently unfair standard.

There are single family homes and condos next to some of my buildings where the tenants are involved in gun play, drugs and prostitution. I have lost tenants due to these neighboring activities. Alas, these are not nuisance properties because there are less than 3 calls per month regarding each property. I have a few family disputes and misdialed 911 calls each month from my 30 family building, and I'm the nuisance.

I thought that this individual's email was extremely well-written and clearly pointed out several of the problems with how the City is applying the Chronic Nuisance property against landlords, such as:

1. Regardless of the size of the property (whether it be a single family home or a 100 unit apartment complex) after 3 "nuisance activities" your property can be declared a chronic nuisance.

2. Many of the so-called nuisance activities are not activities for which a Milwaukee County Court Commissioner or Judge will evict a tenant for participating in. As this person stated, the writer indicaterd, when he tried to evict the tenant he was "laughed out of court." I have been involved in eviction trials where at the close of evidence, rather then evicting the tenant that was selling drugs out of my client's property, the Judger told the tenant that he really didin't need to have 20 people coming and going from his apartment between the hours of 11 pm and 3 am most nights of the week and that he should stop that activity as it wasn't fair to his neighbors. The Judge then denied my clients request for a judgment of eviction but rather scheduled the case for a staus conference in 60 days to see if things improved. If landlords cannot even get obvious drug dealers evicted how are they going to be able to have a tenant that littered, called 911, or made an excessive noise evicted?

3. Some of the 911 calls are legitimate calls for which the police should be called and the owner of that property should not be put in the position of having to choose between receiving a fine and having his/her property declared to be a nuisance or telling his tenants not to call 911 for real emergencies.

4. Oftentimes the property that is attributed with the call is not where the actual "nuisance activity" occurred. I heard of an instance where a woman had gotten into a fight with her boyfriend at her home and then fled, she then stopped at a nearby apartment complex and asked one of the tenant's if she could use her phone to call the police. Seeing that the lady was upset, the tenant allowed her to make the call. The lady called 911. As a result of the tenant being a helpful neighbor to the victim, the tenant's landlord was contacted by the police becasue the telephone call was considered to be an improper use of an emergency number.

I think the police and the Department of Neighborhood Services (which often gets involved in these situations) need to use some "common sense" and distinguish true nuisance activity from other activity rather than classifying everything as a nuisance.

I also think that it would also be helpful for the police and DNS to spend some time in eviction court and observe just how difficult it is to evict a tenant for anything other than failure to pay rent. Maybe after sitting in room 400 of the Milwaukee County Courthouse for an afternoon they will realize that they are living in an alternate universe if they think that a landlord can obtain an eviction judgment against a tenant who litters, improperly calls 911, makes loud noises, or loiters.

I have met with the new Commissioner of DNS, Art Dahlberg, along with other members of the AASEW board, and Mr. Dahlberg was also kind enough to speak at one of the AASEW's membership meetings. In speaking with the Commissioner, he has commented that he agrees that some common sense used when determining if something a a nuisance activity. It is my hope that the addition of some common sense will occur ASAP so that landlords like the one that emailed me above, are not being placed in such an unfair position.

If Milwaukee's Chrnoic Nuisance ordinance has been unfairly applied to you and your rental properties I would appreciate you providing me with the details by adding a comment to this post.

AASEW's Response to Rep. Schneider's CCAP Legislation Can Be Found at www.DefeatAB340.org

For those of you that have been following my blog, you are well aware that State Rep. Marlin Schneider (D-Wisconsin Rapids) has introduced yet another bill attempting to restrict the public's access to CCAP. This new bill also will remove certain information from even being included on CCAP. My prior blogs on this topic can be read here, here and here.

The Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin (AASEW), a collection of landlords and rental property managers, are strongly opposed to Schenider's new bill which is entitled AB 340, and have decided to do something about it. The AASEW has created a web page that can be found at www.DefeatAB340.org or by clicking here, which contains links to the actual bill as well as links to your state senators and representative so that you can contact them and convey your displeasure with this bill.

Please visit the AASEW's web page and consider contacting your elected officials to express your views as to AB 340. You should also forward the link to anyone and everyone you know that may be affected by this legislation.

If passed, this bill will affect more than just landlords. Parents, employers, day care providers and more, will be unable to use CCAP without paying an annual fee and having their CCAP searches recorded by the state. Additionally, you will be unable to learn whether a person has been charged with a crime, found liable in a civil lawsuit, or had an eviction action filed against them - until after the case has been resolved, which is often months or years after the action was filed.

The bill will also allow a person who has information contained on CCAP but which did not result in a convictions or judgment (even if this was the result of a stipulated dismissal) to remove all reference to that information from CCAP. The concept of open records will be hurt severly should AB 340 pass.

Please do your part to insure that AB340 fails.

NEW RULES FOR LEAD-SAFE REMODELING GO INTO EFFECT IN 2010

New rules for remodeling of houses built before 1978 go into effect in April of 2010. As of April 22, 2010 any person or business that disturbs more than 6 square feet of interior surface that may contain lead-based paint or more than 20 square feet of exterior surface that may contain lead-based paint will be subject to the EPA's 2008 Lead Renovation, Repair and Painting Rule.

In the past a person or business did not need to comply with the EPA's lead paint rules as long as they were not engaged in "abating" or "eliminating" lead based paint surfaces. That has now changed. In the near future if you are working on pre-1978 homes or child occupied business (like day care centers or schools) you will need to be registered with the EPA and take certified lead-safety training.

Certification will cost $300 and includes attending an 8 hour course. Certification must be renewed every 5 years. The required forms to become certified may be found here.

At least one person in each firm needs to be trained and certified. A firm is defined as including a sole proprietorship. On each job site there must be one certified person present to ensure that the lead-safe work practices are followed. This includes training the workers, setting up the containment system (for the lead-dust collection) and for supervising the clean up.

Following the new federal rules will also include distributing the new lead-safe remodeling pamphlet to owners and occupants and obtaining their signatures verifying that they received the pamphlet. It will also be required that the owners or occupants are notified in writing of the scope of the work, the location of the work and the expected start and end dates for the work. Records will need to be kept for at least 3 years.

Testing of the various surfaces that are to be disturbed is also required via chemical spot testing, x-ray fluoresence, and lab analysis.

The keys to abiding by the new rules will include: (1) isolating the job area, (2) managing the dust, and (3) keeping the area clean.

Is painting considered to be remodeling? This is the question on many landlords' minds. While painting isn't considered to be remodeling or renovation in itself, painting will be subject to the new regulations if the surface that you are painting will need to be disturbed in any way (such as through sanding, scraping or any other dust causing actions).

These new rules will need to be followed by anyone that is disturbing the minimum areas in pre-1978 housing -- it does not just apply to certified contractors -- if you are doing work on your own rental property, these federal laws will apply to you.

If you are interested in learning more about these new lead-safe remodeling rules please attend the Apartment Association of Southeastern Wisconsin's June membership meeting on June 15, 2009 at 7 pm. You can find additional information here.

If you would like to learn additional information on the rules you should read Eileen Franko's article here.

DNS COMMISSIONER TO SPEAK AT JUNE AASEW MEETING

I hope that AASEW members and non-members will all come out in force to attend the AASEW's June membership meeting on June 15, 2009. Our main speaker will be the Department of Neighborhood Services new Commissioner Mr. Art Dahlberg. We are not yet certain what Mr. Dahlberg's speaking topic will be at this time but check back to this Blog for updates. Mr. Dahlberg has been more than willing to meet with the AASEW, its Board of Directors, and landlords in general to assist in fostering a good working relationship between the City and rental property owners.

The AASEW's meeting are always held on the 3^rd Monday of each month - and held at the Best Western Midway Hotel located at 1005 S. Moorland Rd. in Brookfield.