City of Madison
Legislative File ID   07615
Type:   Ordinance    Status:   Passed
Enactment Date:   4/26/2008    Enactment No.:   ORD-08-00043
Title:  
SECOND SUBSTITUTE - Amending Sections 32.07(5), (7), (9) and (14) of the Madison General Ordinances to require landlords to obtain, maintain, and provide or make available, upon request, photographic evidence of damage, waste or neglect being charged against a tenant’s security deposit.
Controlling Body:   HOUSING COMMITTEE
Introduced:   9/25/2007    Version:   3
Final Action:   4/8/2008    Contact:   Janice Pena 608-261-9159
Name:  
landlord damage photos
Extra Date 1:  
Requester:   HOUSING COMMITTEE
Sponsors:  
Eli Judge, Michael E. Verveer, Brian L. Solomon, Robbie Webber, Joseph R. Clausius, Judy Compton
Legislative History
DateActing BodyAction TakenMotion
9/25/2007Attorney's Office/Approval GroupApproved As To Form
9/25/2007Attorney's OfficeFiscal Note Required / Approval to the Comptroller's Office/Approval Group due on 9/26/2007. Completed on 9/26/2007
9/26/2007Comptroller's Office/Approval GroupApproved Fiscal Note By The Comptroller's Office to the Attorney's Office Completed on 9/26/2007
Notes: Bohrod
9/26/2007Attorney's OfficeReferred for Introduction
Notes: Housing Committee
10/2/2007COMMON COUNCILRefer to the HOUSING COMMITTEE Completed on 3/5/2008
11/2/2007HOUSING COMMITTEEThis Ordinance was Refer to the LANDLORD AND TENANT ISSUES SUBCOMMITTEE
Notes:
12/20/2007LANDLORD AND TENANT ISSUES SUBCOMMITTEEA motion was made by Ejercito, seconded by Sparer, to Return to Lead with the Following Recommendation(s) to the HOUSING COMMITTEE: Insert language in the Ordinance on it being subject to photographic evidence as some items cannot be photographed (i.e. smells). Ald. Judge said the Ordinance was drafted as the timeframe being 90 days beyond the latest deadline set forth here. If there is overlapping tenancy, there is not an issue. However, if there is a gap between someone moving out, the apartment sits vacant for a couple months, someone moves in and they then get noticed that the last person was charged, that is when the deadline starts for that person Ald. Judge gave background on how this Ordinance came about. Constituents have called him and complained that they were charged for things that by no means matched the charges. Within six months of him taking position, he had already received four calls about frivolous charges. It is a good business practice and is to protect both the tenant and the landlord. It was discussed if labor costs would be extreme. However, he indicated it is not costly because you can even take a photo on a cell phone. There is some time involved with labeling photos; however, legal costs would outweigh maintaining photos for however long you need to. This Ordinance would help those with the devastatingly large charges on matters that are frivolous. Ald. Judge has discussed this with Ald. Konkel in her capacity at Tenant Resource Center and this is an ongoing problem. Ald. Judge reiterated that this is an extremely important tool because for some people the charges can be devastating amounts of money. Ms. LeTourneau completely disagrees with this Ordinance. Just because something is a good business practice, does not mean it should be an ordinance or a law. There is a misperception about who the landlords are in this City. You can Photoshop photos and make it look however you want. The matter should be taken care of in court if there is damage that is being disputed. Some things cannot be photographed, i.e. smells, things in pipes, etc. It is second nature for younger people, such as students, to photograph as they have the technology on hand, in the form of cell phones. However, this is not second nature for older people who are landlords. Some may not even have cell phones, let alone a digital camera. She would never support this but thinks it is a good business practice to take photos. People do sometimes agree to the damage, but not the cost of repair. Ms. LeTourneau is concerned about the clarity and quality of photographs as some people are better photographers than others. Ms. Hassel thinks this is a good business practice, but disagrees on some issues. She disagrees with the comment that people do not know how to use the technology. She has seen some residents with small things wrong in their apartments after they have moved out, when they have already been having problems with management, and months later she happens to know that those people received bills for $3,000 - $6,000. These people moved out of town and then months later received letters about the frivolous charges/damages, so she has seen this issue go both ways. Ms. Hassel pointed out that when you go through multiple management companies, the check-in/check-out sheets are not maintained for the tenants. Sometimes people get mad at landlords and put sand and rocks in tubs/drains, but you cannot take photos of that. What is the point of having a check-in/check-out sheet if the photos are required? Mr. Ejercito pointed out that the photos do not have to be digital. The cost is higher when using film/disposable cameras. Film is more the set medium than digital if you are concerned with authenticity. Mr. Ejercito asked what procedures/standards the courts have set up in terms of authenticity and acceptability of photographs. Mr. Viste said they accept film and digital photos, as long as someone testifies that they truthfully and accurately depict what it is supposed to be depicting. Both digital and print photographs can be altered. Mr. Ejercito asked what the penalty was for altering photographs/evidence. A case was referenced wherein a landlord was proved to have completely fabricated evidence and the judge denied their claim and awarded all the damages to the tenant as a punishment for doing that. It is considered perjury. Sparer thinks this is a good Ordinance. Photographs of damage are simply helpful in court. It is not the end all as you cannot photograph pet smells; however, it is helpful to both the landlord and tenant to support their claims. Mr. Sparer thinks that the 90 days of maintaining the photos should be longer, possibly one year. The cost of maintaining the photos would not be very much per tenant and the fact that it is any type of photograph, film or digital, gives people flexibility. Mr. Brink thinks the language should be phrased differently and referred to the last page of Subsection 9, of Section 3207, entitled Security Deposit Refund Procedures (Madison General Ordinance). After referencing Section 3207 7(b), Mr. Brink said you should not lose everything on the technicality of losing one photo. The photo should be specific to the item being disputed. The Ordinance already says that you have to have receipts/documentation for everything you are charging for. Ald. Judge clarified that the language should state that you should have photographs for the things you expect to get damages from. Photographs are a piece of evidence and that is why they are put next to receipts. A student he spoke with had photographs that she took to the landlord and because she had proof, it was dropped right then and she was not charged for it. The photographs are not the sole source of evidence in these cases. They are to help prove whether or not the damage existed. Mr. Viste thinks that it basically means that the landlord could not take out of the security deposit for something that pictures don’t exist for. If there are 10 things broken and the landlord documents 9 things with photographs, then Sub 14 allows them to charge for the 9 things against the security deposit. If they then charge for the 10th thing and the picture does not exist, then they cannot charge for that. The landlord must have photographs to deduct from the security deposit. If the landlord persisted in deducting for something they did not have a photo of, then they would forfeit the entire claim. This would require landlords to photograph any damage, waste or neglect regardless. If they do not do that, they are not entitled to deduct it. Obviously, smells cannot be photographed. If a tenant leaves water running and runs up a massive water bill, that cannot be photographed. It may be wise to consider adding in something, such as if it is possible to photograph it. Brink thinks there should be clarification and it should be re-worked. Mr. Sparer gave background information on State Law/City Law. There is case law that says if you don’t send the security deposit in 21 days, then it does not matter what your claims are or how legitimate they are, you automatically owe double damages and attorneys fees (under State Law). The City Ordinance was adopted at the time that was already the law. The City added additional requirements to what the 21-day letter has to say and it has to include receipts and estimates in addition to simply a listing of claims. This provision, if you do not do it in the way that we are saying you should do it, causes you to lose your right to the entire deposit and the penalty provisions go into play. This is the same as the case law, but the City wanted to add extra documentation in the 21-day letter, beyond what the state required. Amendment to Motion: An Amendment to the Motion was made by Sparer, seconded by Judge, to insert language in the Ordinance on it being subject to photographic evidence as some items cannot be photographed (i.e. smells). The Amendment passed by voice vote/other. Michael Greiber spoke again and said this is unnecessarily burdensome for such a small percentage. It usually falls to the side of the tenant if there are no photos of the damage. The City is going to be taking millions of photographs for a handful of cases that go to court each year. Ald. Judge yielded time to Nancy Jensen. Ms. Jensen agrees with the amendment and does not think this is overly burdensome and it may reduce the number of cases that go to court. She would like to see the industry come to table on this dialogue. The motion passed by the following vote:Pass
(5:1)
Notes: The Landlord & Tenant Issues Subcommittee voted to return Ordinance 07615 to the Housing Committee with the recommendation for approval, with the following amendment: Insert language in the Ordinance on it being subject to photographic evidence as some items cannot be photographed (i.e. smells).
1/9/2008HOUSING COMMITTEEA motion was made by LeTourneau, seconded by Ejercito, to refer the Landlord & Tenant item on the Agenda to the next Housing Committee meeting. The motion passed by voice vote/other with Chair Hirsch abstaining.
Notes:
2/6/2008Refer to the HOUSING COMMITTEE Completed on 3/5/2008
3/5/2008HOUSING COMMITTEESparer recommends that the Housing Committee adopt Ordinance 07615. Sparer indicated that there are a lot of complaints by renters that this is where they are abused, by having the deposits deducted, or money deducted from their deposit when it should not be. One of the things that certainly arises whenever you have a claim like this is what proof do you have, landlord, that this damage actually occurred. He can say from personal experience of litigating these things for 25 years, that it is absolutely the case that some small number do completely fabricate damage claims. He has had cases where he has gone through the trial and in developing the evidence they have proof that they completely fabricated the claim. They will fabricate receipts from repair people and all sorts of crazy things. As the first gentleman was speaking about, he made clear, and Sparer thinks it is true, that a photo will not be everything and there are ways that landlords can fake the photos and fabricate that too. Sparer said we are trying to come up with a procedure that will work the best for the vast majority of people and we know there are a handful of people out there who are actually crooks and they are going to find a way to try to sneak around this. Having photos really helps. When one person is saying there was a hole the size of a basketball and another person says I had just a little stickpin in the wall and that is all it was, well if you have a photograph of it, you can see what it is. We heard from the industry, Nancy Jensen, that they feel this is a good practice and it is not onerous. There were concerns raised, which he thinks are fair, which are there are some things you cannot take a picture of, but the Ordinance specifically has an exception for that. He would really recommend that the Housing Committee adopt this. Villacrez asked what the exception was for cat urine. Sparer said the exception is as long as such waste, damage or neglect can be photographed. If it cannot be photographed, you do not have to have a photograph. You cannot photograph a smell so therefore no photograph. Villacrez said he would not be so adamant about it, but just going through a similar situation in August, he took photos of damaged kitchen walls and they do not show up on the photos. He literally had to go through, take all of the appliances out and repaint. There was no way a photograph was going to capture the amount of neglect and abuse and damage these tenants created to the unit. What is the remedy to that concern? He thinks it is a very legitimate concern. You get into some of the fine details of cleaning and Nancy is right, we do not want the government telling us what is clean and what is not clean. However, there is a certain standard that a lot of times tenants just don’t meet. Sparer said it requires that you take a photograph. It does not say anywhere in the Ordinance that your photograph show it to the satisfaction of somebody. Villacrez asked how that is going to play out in court. Sparer said that at least if there is a photograph, there is something. It doesn’t mean that the photograph has to be of any particular quality. It is just saying to take a photograph. If you take a photograph, you have the right to make the claim. If you are not willing to document your alleged damage, then you cannot make that claim. Judge said, to go off of what Sparer said, this is one of the things that he brought up the first time the Committee discussed this, probably prematurely because it was immediately referred to Tenant/Landlord, but it kind of adjusts the burden of proof. Where now all you have is receipts, now you have this other bit. It is not the end all/be all of proof, but it is just something else that you can provide, whether it is for the security deposit or in court, if it should unfortunately get to that point. To steer us another way, there were some amendments that Judge was hoping to propose tonight, one that Nancy alluded to. It goes at something that Brink brought up at the Tenant/Landlord Subcommittee a couple weeks back. As it is, it could be read in the Ordinance right now that if you have six, lets say seven damages, and you only have photos for six, the way it could possibly read is that you can’t claim the damages for any of those. Judge spoke to Doran Viste a couple weeks back and they crafted something that pretty much clears it up and says that if you have six photos and you don’t have it for the seventh, you can claim damages on those six, but the seventh you cannot. Judge had language that they crafted that he wants to propose. A motion was made by Judge, seconded by Ejercito, to amend the Ordinance, Section 32.07(14), to say a landlord may withhold from a tenant’s security deposit (and he thinks this is already in it). However, at the end it would say, the failure of a landlord to take, provide to the tenant, or obtain a photograph documenting a specific claim of damage, waste or neglect, that was able to be photographed only precludes the landlord from withholding from the tenant’s security deposit for the specific claim in question and does not otherwise affect the landlord’s ability to recover for such damage, waste or neglect. Judge said it pretty much gets at what Brink was worried about earlier, and what Judge was worried about too. He hopes for the Committee’s support on the amendment. Hirsch said he received another registration from the member of the public and asked if the Committee wished to suspend their discussion and hear the person. A motion was made by Villacrez, seconded by Judge, to allow Rebecca Anderson to speak on Ordinance 07615. The motion passed by voice vote/other with Hirsch abstaining. Hirsch asked Ms. Anderson to keep her comments to three minutes. Ms. Anderson apologized for being late and is speaking in opposition of Ordinance 07615. Ms. Anderson brought in copies of photographs that she gave to Villacrez to address clarity in photos. She said, “This is what you get on a digital camera”. This is a regular photo camera and you cannot see much of anything. How can you know which apartment it is? Ms. Anderson believed that the photo she was showing was taken at 22 Langdon Street and she has probably 68 apartments that all look the same. What they are going to have to do is go take a picture of that apartment, go back to her office and download it so they know exactly which apartment it came from. It is complicated and it is not going to work. Wilcox asked if you are taking a picture in the apartment, is there any reason why Ms. Anderson could not put some notation within the scope of the photograph of what the apartment number is. Ms. Anderson said she suspected you could do that. That doesn’t mean that every one is going to be perfect, as during August they checkout 300 apartments, and you are not going to be 100% on 300 apartments. Wilcox said that Ms. Anderson still has a checkout that she could add the corresponding photograph to. Ms. Anderson indicated she could; however, rather than going to having pictures of everything, if the City or somebody would educate these tenants to do a detailed check-in form, all of this would be covered. We would not need any pictures, because they would say, “Carpet, Apartment 224, stain in the right hand corner” and everything would be taken care of. They would not need the photos because they depend on their check-in forms. They go to the point that they keep the checkout form from the year before so that they are not caught in this, “I did it/you did it/I didn’t do it/you don’t have a picture”. Wilcox indicated that interestingly enough, she has rented in the same place for almost 19 years and when she checked in they were very thorough about noting where the previous tenant had used an iron on the carpet to remove wax so that it showed. 19 years later, that carpet hasn’t been replaced and those marks are still there, but Wilcox still has her check-in form. Ms. Anderson indicated that another thing that is going to happen is that time wise, they will have to go back and download photos, and it will take their checkout procedure much longer. Consequently, rather than getting their people out, now they are homeless for 24 hours Downtown, from the 14th Noon to the 15th at Noon. They do allow people to move in on the 14th if they have hardwood floors. That is going to stop. They will let them out on the 14th, in on the 16th, so they have time to go in and make sure they have a picture of everything that the City wants them to take a picture of. She does not think this is helping tenants. Hirsch referenced another registrant, Jeff Wiswell, Apartment Association of South Central Wisconsin, present in support of Ordinance 07615, who did not wish to speak. Point of Order by Judge, that there is a motion on the floor with an amendment. Hirsch thinks it is time to vote on the amendment, which is to add the language. The amendment to the motion passed by the following vote: Yes - Brink, Day, Ejercito, Judge, Konkel, LeTourneau, Porterfield, Rutten, Sparer, Wilcox No - Villacrez Abstain - Hirsch Absent - Hassel & Mandeville Excused - Munson LeTourneau would like more discussion, but also had an amendment too. Security deposits, no matter what you do, is a contentious item. It has always been in the State’s list of landlord issues and it always will be. LeTourneau understands about Alders getting phone calls. Landlords also get phone calls about other landlords. A lot of these things should be in court. What concerns her the most is that she thinks this will be a trap for landlords because they are not going to have every single picture, especially for the people who have huge turnovers. The trap is if you do not do something correctly, you can stand to be, in the end, dumping damages against the landlord because they made a mistake. This is all about them trying to collect for damages that were done or neglect that was done on their unit and that is one of the things that concerns her the most. When you talk about protecting tenants’ rights or landlords protecting their rights, everybody has the right to take photographs and they should. Tenants should be talking their own photographs and that would protect their rights and landlords should be taking their photographs and that protects their rights. In renting a car and taking the car back, LeTourneau takes a photo of the car because she does not think that rental agency is going to take a picture on her behalf. They have her credit card and they are going to charge her and she is protecting her rights. There are things that can happen such as an emergency situation with plumbing and things that you are trying to get someone over there to take care of the problem and you cannot get there to take pictures. There are things that are going to come up that are not going to be completely covered with this and there are still going to be problems. She cannot be in favor of this. One of the things that she thinks should be amended is in paragraph 7(b), where it says in the underlined section, “...and a notice that the tenant will be provided a copy of the photograph documenting any damage, waste or neglect of the premises being charged to the tenant if requested...” She thinks it should be in writing. She thinks the tenant should request a copy of the photographs in writing, within 30 days. Sparer asked if her proposal would be that it is upon receipt of a timely written request, and LeTourneau said yes because people can say they request things and people tell her that they told her things that they never told her. A motion was made by LeTourneau, seconded by Sparer, to change the wording to, “if requested in a written report”. The motion passed by voice vote/other, with Hirsch abstaining. Judge had another amendment. Judge was the person who proposed this so he just wanted to go into a little bit why, even though a lot of it has been covered already. The number one thing that brought this to his attention was the fact that they had a lot of cases where things were being fabricated. A perfect example of that is just 3 weeks ago, and some Committee members on Facebook know this, Judge put out a request on his Facebook to tell him of interesting property owner stories, for the sake of educating him. You would not believe the amount of complaints he received about landlords with charges for cleaning. Ms. Jensen brought it up earlier, in that it is the number one complaint of the industry. It is unfortunate, but it is a reality. Whether or not the complaints are real or not is another matter. He also received notice of several cases of tenants who did take pictures of their unit, who were charged large sums of money from $200 - $3,000 from a security deposit, and the damages never existed. They took those pictures to the property owner and the damages were dropped the instant they saw they had pictures. Judge thinks this will address that issue in every sense. He thinks the Tenant/Landlord Subcommittee touched on the fact there are damages that cannot be photographed, and that was a very important change that he was more than happy to second. This has gone through many changes and may go through just one more change by the end of this meeting. This has been a collaboration between City Council, students and property owners. He is happy to say that a lot of the landlords he has come in contact with, in fact a majority of them, have told Judge that this is something that they could sign onto. They think this is the best business practice and that they think this should be an industry standard. Judge feels this will address a lot of the complaints he is receiving about things being fabricated and he hopes the Committee supports it. The one amendment Judge wanted to make, on top of the one that just passed, was one that Sparer brought up and one that Judge thinks the Committee has spoken about in the past. In the case where the landlord and tenant both agree that the damages existed, that the tenant did create the damages against the unit, that if both the tenant and the landlord, in writing, say that these damages existed, a photo will not be required. Judge yielded the floor to Sparer. A motion was made by Sparer, seconded by Judge, to add in Section 4, which amends Subsection 14 of the Ordinance, in the parenthesis is where it discusses exceptions to the requirement. Sparer would add, “...and if the tenant accepts in writing responsibility for an item of damage, no photograph is required as to that item.” Judge clarified that it be in writing and Sparer indicated that he said in writing. The motion passed by voice vote/other, with Hirsch abstaining. Stipulation by Ejercito - Are there any requirements for retaining that sort of agreement for the benefit of the next tenant that moves in? Ejercito thinks one of the provisions here is that upon move-in that the tenant moving in can take a look at photos from the last checkout/last tenant. LeTourneau said to look at the checkout form. Sparer then said that it should read, “...accepts responsibility in writing on the checkout form” as it already requires that the checkout form be maintained. Viste answered that by saying he does not believe the photograph gets thrown out, if that wouldn’t be any violation for the new tenant because the way the Ordinance tracks here is that they are just required to show any pictures that are maintained under 14(a). 14(a) says that you don’t have to keep a picture, if a picture is required and the tenant agrees, no picture will exist which means that the new tenant will not have anything to look at. Porterfield asked what this would solve. Sparer said it would help out the landlords who are complaining about taking all of these photographs, and some of the people who e-mailed in raised this issue. They said damage occurred and the tenant totally agreed to it. If they agree to it, they’re not contesting it. The landlord can take pictures if they want, but they are faulted for not taking them if the tenant agrees in writing. If there is a dispute later, then the photograph is good. Konkel said that several people are asking the question about that just applying to the checkout form and not the check-in form. She did not look at the language and she asked if that is how it reads. Sparer said they added that idea. Sparer asked Zopelis if this was correct, that it said, “if the tenant accepts in writing on the checkout form responsibility for...” Konkel said that sounded good. Ejercito brought the Committee back to the main motion. Ejercito thanked the people who came up with and drafted this Ordinance. He thinks that through the process it has been discussed at the Subcommittee and a lot of these scenarios were covered that are coming up. It is crafted very well and addresses these scenarios. He thinks it goes a long way toward setting a fair playing field in the industry. As far as hearing from good landlords that have showed up and said they already do this, that this is their practice, he thinks this evens the playing field for folks to be able to all provide this kind of protection for themselves and protection for their tenants. The Committee covered how to document things like smells, or at least the fact that we can’t do things like that. This does not make it any more difficult because we are still going to face that same kind of situation of how you prove that those damages occurred. This does not put any additional burden on anyone in particular. Ejercito is glad to see that this Ordinance does not mandate that everyone has to buy a certain type of camera, and it allows for any sort of photographic medium to capture/document this kind of stuff. You can go out and buy a disposable camera, you can get disposable, digital cameras at this point, you can use a cell phones camera if you think that this is going to help show that something was damaged. He does not see this as being onerous and it has been spoken to by members of the industry. Ejercito is excited to see this pass. Konkel has been working at the Tenant Resource Center since 1992 so she has seen this happen year after year. There are always going to be disputes. She thinks this is a pretty elegant solution to a problem that they see a lot of. Security deposits have been top complaints and she has been there. A lot of it is just because there is just a dispute over the facts and we have that photo, that really helps clear up the issues very fast. There may be a little bit of a dispute over how big something is or how much the amount might vary, but a photo makes people say, “Oh, yeah, I guess it was worse than what I remember”. The other thing is that in Small Claims Court, and these numbers are a bit old, there are 14,000 Small Claims Court cases in a year, and about half of those are tenant/landlord claims, at 7,000. 3,000 of them were evictions. Of the other 4,000, over 90% of them were security deposit. It is mostly just disputes about how badly damaged something was. These photos would help clear up a lot of that and Konkel thinks in way, it would help clear up the court system a little bit as well. Fabrications are not widespread, but when they are there, they are very egregious. She has seen people come in and get charged for carpet cleaning when they have hardwood floors. There are routine things that are deducted from security deposits. Konkel has had landlords tell her that only 1 out of 10 tenants is going to come back and dispute this, so I’ll just charge it and see what happens. She thinks this will really help and it is just a good business practice. She is surprised that landlords do not do this and put a sticky note in every photo with the address, the number of the unit, and what year it is. She thinks this is great evidence and it stops tenants from being able to complain and say they didn’t do something. She thinks a lot of times when people come in, the disputes are more about the degree of the damage and if you have the photos, it helps prove that degree. Konkel thinks it is a great solution and appreciates Judge’s work on this. Villacrez said when it comes to a matter of degree of damage; he does not see anyone taking a photograph with a cell phone. That is not a level playing field. He thinks this will require landlords large and small to go out and buy high-resolution cameras. This will put some burden on some landlords in this town. If he is going to be forced to take a photo, he is not going to take it with a cell phone or a disposable camera because when he has to go in front of a court and say here is the damage. He wanted to state that on record that there is a difference in how all of this is processed. You cannot take one photo and have the landlord think that is going to be okay. He does not think that is a fair assessment of it. Porterfield said to Villacrez that he does not know that the landlord is giving up any rights. They are being required to do this extra practice, but they still have due process to the rest of their case. Villacrez said it was more of an observation. Sparer wanted the Committee members to be clear that this Ordinance only relates to deductions from security deposits. One thing to remember is that this is not the landlord’s money. They are having the tenant put money down in advance, and maybe it won’t even be needed, but it is their money above and beyond what they owe on the lease, and then they are supposed to get it back, but know the landlord is taking money out of there. This Ordinance is saying that if you are going to take someone else’s money away from them, you have to be able to document it. This Ordinance has absolutely no affect whatsoever on a landlord’s right to sue the tenant for damages. You do not need to have a picture to sue a tenant, although it would be helpful. All it is saying is that if you do not take that photograph, give them back their deposit and go ahead and sue them for the money if you think that they owe you for that. You are allowed to do that and it does not change that at all. Konkel said one other thing that would be helpful here is if landlords actually did checkouts in person. When two people are standing there and looking at the same item of damage, and the tenant says, “I think it is clean enough” and the landlord says, “It is not”, the tenant can pick up a rag and clean it themselves at that point or they can say, “You know what, I am hot and sweaty and don’t care anymore, how much are you going to charge me for it?” If the landlord says $20 and the tenant just says fine, then they walk out the door and everyone knows what is going to happen because they were both standing there. A lot of disputes get settled right on the spot easily and it would be nice if more landlords were able to do those in person checkouts because it really does help cut down on the number of complaints. A motion was made by Sparer, seconded by Judge, to RECOMMEND TO COUNCIL WITH THE FOLLOWING RECOMMENDATIONS - REPORT OF OFFICER. The motion passed by the following vote: Pass
(9:2)
Notes: A motion was made by Judge, seconded by Ejercito, to amend the Ordinance, Section 32.07(14), to say a landlord may withhold from a tenant’s security deposit (and he thinks this is already in it). However, at the end it would say, the failure of a landlord to take, provide to the tenant, or obtain a photograph documenting a specific claim of damage, waste or neglect, that was able to be photographed only precludes the landlord from withholding from the tenant’s security deposit for the specific claim in question and does not otherwise affect the landlord’s ability to recover for such damage, waste or neglect. The amendment to the motion passed by the following vote: Yes - Brink, Day, Ejercito, Judge, Konkel, LeTourneau, Porterfield, Rutten, Sparer, Wilcox No - Villacrez Abstain - Hirsch Absent - Hassel & Mandeville Excused - Munson LeTourneau thinks paragraph 7(b) should be amended, where it says in the underlined section, “...and a notice that the tenant will be provided a copy of the photograph documenting any damage, waste or neglect of the premises being charged to the tenant if requested...” She thinks it should be in writing. She thinks the tenant should request a copy of the photographs in writing, within 30 days. A motion was made by Letourneau, seconded by Sparer, to change the wording to, “if requested in a written report”. The motion passed by voice vote/other, with Hirsch abstaining. A motion was made by Sparer, seconded by Judge, to add in Section 4, which amends Subsection 14 of the Ordinance, in the parenthesis where it discusses exceptions to the requirement. Sparer would add, “...and if the tenant accepts in writing responsibility for an item of damage, no photograph is required as to that item.” Judge clarified that it be in writing and Sparer indicated that he said in writing. The motion passed by voice vote/other, with Hirsch abstaining.
4/8/2008COMMON COUNCILA motion was made by Ald. Judge, seconded by Ald. Verveer, to Adopt. The motion passed by voice vote/other.Pass
Notes:
Approvals
ApproverDateApproval Status
Eric Knepp1/4/2008Approved
Michael May1/4/2008Approved
Daniel Bohrod3/17/2008Approved
Michael May3/17/2008Approved

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