August 19, 2008
Is Your Landlord Licensed to Do Business?
The Department of Consumer & Regulatory Affairs is officially launching a new blog next week associated with its Collegiate Off-Campus Housing Initiative, called ThisShouldBeIllegal.com. The basic idea of the web-based program, according to DCRA spokesperson Michael Rupert, is "to try and get college kids to make sure they are being rented to legally." Under D.C. law, your landlord is required to have a business license, and the process of obtaining one prompts an automatic safety inspection to check for things like working smoke detectors and fire exits.
There might be a few tweaks to the site between now and the official launch, but all of the basic functionality is already up and running. It's a nice little web site that incorporates other social networking-based outreach efforts like a Facebook group and a Twitter feed.
Early posts to the blog encourage renters to visit this Business License Verification tool, which allows you to enter a landlord's name or your address to find out if your landlord has complied with the law. If you don't see your landlord's name in the database, it's likely they don't have a license, at which point you can contact DCRA through the blog, their Twitter feed, via email or phone to trigger an investigation.
So what happens if you sick a DCRA investigator on your landlord? Could you end up unwittingly setting in motion a series of events that could lead you to being forced to move out of an apartment you're perfectly happy with? ThisShouldBeIllegal.com says that your landlord won't know it was you who contacted them, and that "most of the time, a simple visit from city inspectors can be just the nudge landlords need to respond to problems quickly and without any hassle." Rupert also told us that typically an investigator would say that the agency is doing a random check on rental properties and ask the landlord to “voluntarily come into compliance,” or in other words, pay the money to get a basic business license and have a housing inspection.
"The only way you would get kicked out is if your place was a fire trap or really nasty," he said.
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Does the term "tenant" include, say, hitchhikers picked up in a Chevy van, chlorophormed with a gym sock, and deposited in the sunken well in a basement of a remote cabin? I'm asking for a...friend.
If so, I need to seek legal advice before I continue this post.
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Have you ever tried to get a flucking license with DCRA??!! Its like bathing in the bowel pools of hell.
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Yup. The rental property license application and payment took 30 minutes. The on-site inspection for the property a couple weeks later took 20 minutes.
Sure. The inspection probably took less time because DCRA will give you the checklist to review prior to the inspection. Without the checklist, it could be hell if you don't have things like smoke detectors and fire extinguishers.
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Have you ever tried to get a flucking license with DCRA??!! Its like bathing in the bowel pools of hell.
It ain't that bad, just make you sure you have your papers straight when you get there and you can usually be in and out in a reasonable amount of time. In fact, I don't think I've ever been at DCRA for more than about an hour.
I recently had to go through all of this nonsense so we could sublet our condo while we're in the Hinterlands. Luckily I have an awesome management company that took care of the legwork for me, so all I had to do was fill out about 20 pages worth of forms and shell out a couple hundred bones. I was initially annoyed that I had to fill out a bunch of paperwork to rent out my own damn property. Still I'm glad that I did it because even though I'll get taxed on the income, with everything being all legal beagle I'll also be able to stack up a nice pile of additional deductions.
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Clause IX of my lease reads:
"Snitches get stitches and/or will lose up to 50% of their total deposit."
I'm a bit reluctant to use this site.
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Hey hillrat, nice shout out to evolvedc. I just like hearing when things go right.
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"If you don't see your landlord's name in the database, it's likely they don't have a license, at which point you can contact DCRA through the blog, their Twitter feed, via email or phone to trigger an investigation."
Actually, just as likely is that the DCRA records are wrong.
I ran a little test run on the DCRA site. It wasn't surprising to me to find that several of my properties that I have business licenses for don't show up in their database.
I've had mixed experiences with the basic business license thing.
Several of them went very smoothly.
But several were typical DC - inspectors showing up and telling me things in direct contradiction to their own checklist and codes, inspectors not showing up at all, different inspectors giving me totally different instructions, etc.
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Well, as long as you're renting a whole house (single-family dwelling in DCRA-speak), no problem, but if you want to rent out your basement (thereby making your home a two-unit building or "flat" in DCRA-ese), there's a lot of hassle involved, including getting a C of O. SFDs are the only building type/use that doesn't require a C of O. Getting a C of O requires architectural drawings and making sure the utility, HVAC and fire-code separations are in place. Complying can set you back thousands and it takes months. No wonder most people don't do it.
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@Disco Stu
I'll always give Evolve props, they've been a total life saver.
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This isn't a DC law. These people are just trying to make money off of licenses. The blog doesnt say anything about an actual law, and calling the DC Fire Marshall reveals a pretty loose relationship between loose relationship between the DCRA and any government agency on this.
This is poor reporting on the DCist's part.
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A few calls to the DCRA and DC Dept. of Housing later, and it appears a law probably exists. It's still questionable, though, cuz nobody could give me any real specifics. Also, the thisshouldbeillegal blog seems really, really sketch.