Your Rental Inspection Policy Cheat Sheet To Help You Fill In The Blanks

Use this easy reference guide to help you fill in the blanks of your proactive rental inspection policy generator

Even when broken into small steps, it can be daunting to understand a proactive rental inspection policy. If you want additional insights and examples, please see the expanded Proactive Rental Inspection Policy Cheat Sheet at URL.org. The online version features specific examples from across the country.

Download the PDF Review the Fill-in-the-Blank Policy Generator Reference Research and Examples
Which units are inspected
  • All rental housing (best practice, especially if addressing all housing hazards)
  • Housing built before 1978 (best practice if only addressing lead)
  • Housing built before 1978 (best practice if only addressing lead)
    • Common – Owner-occupied or homes that have had full lead abatement
    • Use Caution – if exempting public housing or excluding big apartment complexes
    • Avoid – applying inspection rules to only housing where kids under 6 live
What do they look for?
  • Lead-only inspections can be done with third-party inspectors while housing code compliance must be city or county staff inspectors. Ensure this aligns with your answer to who does the inspection.
  • All lead sources (best practice)
  • Risk assessment identifying locations of lead in paint, dust, soil
  • Clearance examination including visual assessment, collection and analysis of environmental samples (performed by a clearance technician, lead inspector, or lead risk assessor)
  • Lead Paint Only
    • Visual inspection + dust wipe or dust wipe clearance (better practice)
    • Visual only (not recommended because cannot detect lead dust)
  • Other housing hazards (smoke detectors, mold, carbon monoxide)
Who does the inspection?
  • City inspects for lead and other hazards
  • Landlords are responsible for getting third-party lead certification
  • Considerations
    • Is your city too big for City staff to handle the inspections?
    • Does your city already have a housing inspection program?
    • Are you interested in only lead or other hazards as well (smoke detectors, mold) ?

Compare

City Does Inspections
  • High level control
  • Can cover housing hazards beyond lead
  • Inspectors may have leeway on enforcement
  • High level of staffing is costly
  • May be several years between inspections
  • Targeted inspections (rather than all rentals) may mislead hazards
Third Party Inspections
  • Places burden on landlords to schedule and pay for inspection
  • Low city staffing means lower cost for city
  • Can require more frequent inspections, which can lower cost fixes between inspections
  • Risk of fraud
  • Difficulty knowing whether landlords are doing it
  • If private inspectors don’t exist in the marketplace, it can be expensive
How often are the inspections
  • Periodic
    • Recommend: at least every 2 years
    • Caution: More than 2 years, change in tenants, or sliding scale with extensions if no problems found
  • Upon request—not recommended unless it is in addition to periodic inspections
  • Recommend inspection period tied to the length of time the remediation/abatement will last (if the fix lasts 2 years, inspect every 2 years)
  • Prioritization when rolling out program: highest-risk neighborhoods, those with complaints or those whose owners requested inspections. Roll out can help spread out inspection workload.
What do you do if you find a lead hazard?
  • Remediation = Interim control + dust clearance to minimize lead hazards. Cheaper but interim measures will eventually fail.
  • Abatement = designed to permanently eliminate lead-based paint hazards. Designed to permanently address the lead problem, but often costly.
  • If less than full abatement, inspection must be frequent enough to identify hazards as interim measures begin to fail.
  • Require lead-safe work practices: strongly recommend state or local requirements to follow renovation, repair, and painting requirements.

Implementation, Accountability, and Enforcement

Require inspection as a condition of renting
  • Periodic rental inspections, in conjunction with some type of fee-based registration or certificate, helps the city identify rental housing stock, identify where there are inspection needs, and fund the program.
Types of registration or certificates
  • Certificate of Occupancy: renewable certificates coupled with inspections for compliance with the housing code protect health and preserve the property.
  • Certificate of Compliance: indicates a property meets the housing code
  • Rental Licensing: require inspection as condition of valid license
  • Lead-Free or Lead-Safe Certificate: property has been inspected for lead hazards
    • A lead-safe certificate means that a pre-1978 unit has a clearance examination report (valid for two years) indicating
      lack of lead hazards
    • Lead free = built after 1978 with full abatement of all hazards
  • Rental registration: requires landlords to register their rental units and pay a fee for the registration

    Recommend: the landlord be required to designate actual person with a local physical address (or registered agent) to aid enforcement

Types of registration or certificates:
  • Rental registration: requires landlords to register their rental units and pay a fee for the registration.
  • Certificate of Occupancy: renewable certificates coupled with inspections for compliance with the housing code protect health and preserve the property.
  • Certificate of Compliance: indicates a property meets the housing code
  • Rental Licensing: require inspection as condition of valid license
  • Lead-Free or Lead-Safe Certificate: property has been inspected for lead hazards
    • A lead-safe certificate means that a pre-1978 unit has a clearance examination report (valid for two years) indicating lack of lead hazards
    • Lead free = built after 1978 with full abatement of all hazards
Ensure adequate staffing and technology to support the program
  • Cities need adequate funding to support staffing levels to implement the program (enough inspectors if city-lead inspections or enough enforcement staff if third-party inspections)
  • If using third-party inspectors, take steps to ensure there are enough private companies to keep costs low
  • Hire and train local community members to do the work and outreach because renters will trust them more and it’s the right thing to do
  • Consider employing technology—tablets and software programs speed up data collection, reduce paperwork, allow information to be mapped and shared publicly
  • Hire administrative support staff so trained staff has more time for inspections and enforcement
Escalate administrative fines to fund the lead program
  • Create mechanisms for the city to issue administrative penalties, like tickets with escalating fines, without requiring a legal conviction
    • Large escalating administrative fines for non-compliance
    • Assess penalties if owner fails to register a unit
    • If fines are too low, landlords may intentionally avoid compliance if the fine is less than the cost to fix the problem
  • Establish mechanisms to collect the fines; many housing fines go uncollected
  • Registration “meter maids” can look for noncompliance
Legal mechanisms
  • Create private right of action for tenants whose landlords violate the law
  • Limit eviction proceedings to units with no violations
  • Consider allowing non-profits to help tenants sue landlords
  • Issue a vacate order when the city recognizes severe lead hazards that aren’t addressed in a timely manner. This should require landlords to pay for alternate housing for the tenants.
  • A specialized “lead court” can be helpful if the judge understands issues tenants face, provides free lawyers for tenants, and requires code compliance quickly
Additional Tenant protections
  • Prohibit landlord retaliation when tenants make a complaint
  • Provide alternate housing if repairs require tenants to vacate the apartment. Ideally this is city-provided temporary housing that landlords pay for.
  • Evaluate program for unintended adverse consequences such as displacement from housing, increased prices, or a shrinking rental market
Make lead information for housing publicly available
  • Link the city’s online rental unit registration to a publicly accessible mapping system that also shows inspection results (and potentially other code violations)
  • Consider an sticker system that uses color-coded stickers in front window showing registration and inspection expiration dates
Reporting the numbers of inspections, results, and metrics to determine effectiveness
  • Produce a annual report with the number of inspections, type of lead found, metrics and evaluation posted on an easily-accessible website
  • Ensure third-party inspections are public, searchable and auditable
  • Develop metrics to measure effectiveness, especially tracking blood lead results
Funding to help landlords afford repairs
  • A revolving loan fund can assist struggling landlords with making repairs to their homes
  • Public-private partnerships can bring money from the philanthropic community with an opportunity to work with landlords, not in opposition to them