When the Raleigh City Council approved a controversial new registration fee for landlords in June, it was supposed to go into effect in early January 2009. But Robert Spruill, the city's housing inspections administrator, said this week that the city would not begin registering landlords until March at the earliest.
The new fee is related to the city's PROP, or Probationary Rental Occupancy Permit, ordinance. It will require landlords to pay $30 annually for their first registered unit and $10 for each additional unit registered in the same dwelling. The money will be used to create a database of rental properties and to hire a four-person team to deal with landlords who run afoul of the PROP.
The city estimates that about half of Raleigh's 154,000 residential units are rental properties, which means the new fees will generate more than $775,000 annually. The City Council voted 5-3 to adopt the fee in June. Opponents said the fee is excessive and will just be passed on to tenants.
The landlord database is supposed to make it easier for the city to identify problem landlords. A landlord enters the PROP program if he or she accumulates a certain number of housing code violations at a property.
Each landlord in the program is required to get a permit, pay $500 a year for two years and attend rental management classes. Since the ordinance was adopted in 2005, 20 properties have received enough violations to qualify.
Spruill said the city's Public Affairs Department will lead a campaign to let landlords know when the registration period begins. He said landlords will likely have about two months to register their rental properties with the city.
Business reporter David Bracken came to the N&O in 2004. He covers commercial and residential real estate. Contact David at 919-829-4548 or 
Comments
Situation?
Tue, 09/22/2009 - 12:48 — JommekeWe're now Sept 2009. What happened since the writing of this article? Has the registering begun?
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Landlords as Businessmen and Women
Fri, 09/04/2009 - 20:33 — leonard123For all the hassle a landlord has to deal with, they should all give out full color business cards to their tenants so their tenants know exactly how to reach them. They could even give out business card magnets for their clients (tenants) to put on their fridge so that they can call them at all hours of the night...
Former Landlord
Fri, 09/04/2009 - 20:27 — leonard123I am speaking as a former landlord and also as a former tenant. Most people who are not a landlord have no idea what kind of crap the landlords have to deal with. I had tenants wreck units, keep their places filthy and not pay rent by using the "laws" to their advantage. All because they mistakenly believed I was a millionaire. I also had to install a huge fire safety system which cost $5,000. I do not mind having to install such things, but tenants need to understand this costs money, so please be responsible and do not only think about yourselves. I do not have a problem with having a system in place to deal with dead beat landlords or landlords who refuse to fix up their units. However, most of the time, from what I have experienced, most of the damage comes from tenants who care very little about the place but want free services like a new door when they smashed out the glass after a drunken party.
Wouldn't you rather be playing with an airsoft rifle ?
I think this is ridiculous
Tue, 08/25/2009 - 15:24 — ryant2kWhy should anyone have to register to be a landlord? Isn't that kind of an invasion of privacy and a waste of money? Is this a publicly available list? Think of all the people who could get their hands on this list of landlords and sell the crap out of them for services.
And then does this mean the city will gradually encroach on our rights by doing random visits to the property for inspections? This is a good thing but could also be bad.
How much further could this law go? Let the landlords run their own businesses the way they want to within the law. If they're doing something wrong, the tenants will speak up themselves.
This is just my two cents.
Ryan Thompson
I hope the additional cost
Wed, 08/05/2009 - 12:09 — BullogI hope the additional cost they have to pay will not pass to current tenants. That would be bad (for me). social bookmark