Legislation would allow third party control of properties if landlords refuse to meet safety codes

BY: MICHAEL LYLE, Nevada Current

Clark County officials told state lawmakers Wednesday of numerous occasions of landlords refusing to fix substandard and dangerous living conditions throughout apartment complexes that put the health and safety of tenants at risk.

The legal remedy at the county’s disposal is to fine the property owners or shut down apartments altogether, which would leave hundreds of tenants without a place to live amid a severe housing shortage.

Assembly Bill 211, which got a first hearing this week at the Assembly Commerce and Labor Committee, would allow another option: allow a third party to take over the property until the repairs are made and living conditions improved.

Democratic Assemblymember Venicia Considine, the sponsor of the legislation, said the bill “provides a solution to the extreme situation when a property is significantly substandard and all attempts to bring the property to standard are rebuffed and ignored.”

“These are situations where seniors are crawling up the stairs or are trapped in their unit because an elevator has been inoperable for months,” Considine said.

While the current law requires landlords to maintain habitable conditions, in some instances property owners “have determined that paying a fine is more acceptable than the option of fixing the property,” she said.

The bill is modeled off similar legislation in 20 other states, Considine said.

AB 211 outlines a process for counties and cities to notify landlords of violations and safety hazards, and provide a deadline for bringing properties up to code.

If property owners don’t comply, municipalities could obtain a court order after giving owners a 30-day notice.

The district court would then determine if a property is in substandard conditions and could appoint a third-party “receiver” to take it over.

“I just want to be clear that this is after the enforcement agency, or code enforcement has gone out multiple times and have reached out to folks,” Considine said. “This is already after months of trying to work to fix the property.”

The district court must find that failure to meet fire safety standards or other codes that endanger the health and safety of residents, according to the bill.

The court can determine if there are reasonable costs for the owner to pay to temporarily relocate tenants if they can’t remain at the complex while issues are being fixed. The court would also have the discretion to award attorney fees.

Clark County Chair Tick Segerblom told state lawmakers of a previous case in which the county unsuccessfully tried to work with apartment complexes with 200 units to try to fix hazardous conditions.

Segerblom said these tenants with lower incomes rely on these units and there isn’t any other place to house them.

“I have 200 people in a building that actually can be fixed, and the landlord refuses to fix it and refuses to do anything,” Segerblom said. The legislation “gives us the tool. It’s the final resort. Hopefully it will be a lever we would never have to use, but at the end of the day, we don’t want to put 200 people on the street.”

During an August commission meeting, Segerblom singled out Apex Apartments on Twain Avenue and Cambridge Street as one property that deteriorated due to neglect from the property owner.

Joanna Jacob, the government affairs manager Clark County, said on Thursday that she recently spoke to another commissioner who was dealing with similar complexes in disrepair.

She didn’t name the complex but indicated it was a 400-unit facility that had received frequent visits by the Southern Nevada Health District and the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department.

“I don’t want to be disgusting, but they found a pool that had been improperly covered,” she said. “Feral cats got underneath, and they found hundreds of dead cats that were in the pool. There’s been homicides at that property. We are trying to engage and trying to figure out how to improve the conditions for the tenants.”

Attempts to work with the landlord to address safety concerns were ignored.

“When we have units of that size, buildings of that size, that we might have to relocate tenants,” she said. “It is a challenge for us”

Jonathan Norman, the Statewide Advocacy, Outreach and Policy Director for the Nevada Coalition of Legal Service Providers, said the bill is about going after “egregious landlords who are extracting wealth from our community without investing into their property.”

When landlords refused to fix substandard living conditions in complexes, “it puts the county and local governments in a place where they have to house 300, 400 families,” he said, testifying in support of the bill.

“For an out of state, unresponsive landlord to just expect they can come to Nevada, not put any resources in and extract money is not fair,” Norman said.

The Nevada State Apartment Association opposed the bill.

John Sande, a lobbyist for the association, said cities and counties need to “explicitly enumerate the process that the landlords will be subjected to prior to this bill” being implemented.

“We want to ensure landlords have clear, due process protections and reasonable opportunity to correct these violations,” he said. “I think that’s the bill sponsor’s objective.”

The committee took no action on the bill.

This story was originally published by Nevada Current and has been republished under a Creative Commons license.