ROCKLAND, Maine — More than a quarter of Maine’s housing stock consists of apartments and many are older units, according to the 2010 U.S. Census.
In an effort to make sure the older rental units meet building requirements for safety in their community, Rockland enacted an ordinance in 2008 that requires that apartment buildings be inspected when they are in the process of being sold.
The staff in Bangor city government is looking to Rockland as a possible model for an ordinance to inspect apartments.
The Rockland inspection law has resulted in improvements to many units but has also been blamed for imposing significant costs to landlords and slowing the sales markets for apartment buildings to a near standstill.
The Rockland law requires that a residential building with three or more units must be inspected when they are set to be sold. The fire department also inspects if an apartment is going to be leased by a general assistance client, or if there is a complaint filed with the city about the conditions of the rental unit.
Inspections also are done if the department responds to an emergency call and sees problems.
“We aren’t looking to find deficiencies but if we go and find unsafe conditions, we’re duty bound to bring it into compliance,” Jordan said.
The fire chief said every national safety regulation on the books was developed after a tragedy. He said last year 3,000 people across the United States died in residential fires.
“That’s a 9-11 disaster every year,” he noted, adding that the United States has the worst record for number of fire deaths of any industrialized nation in the world.
Bangor Code Enforcement Office division director Jeremy Martin said the staff in city government is considering an apartment inspection program similar to Rockland.
Martin said Bangor, a service center for the region, has had a continuing problem with apartments. He said the city has a large number of apartments that are federally subsidized for low-income households.
He said the staff will likely come up with a recommended plan of inspections and then present it to the city council for its consideration.
Tim Fuller of the state fire marshal’s office said there are no statewide inspection programs but that by state law, landlords are required to be in compliance with the building codes. He said apartment owners must also follow local ordinances if they are in place.
Jordan said most of the problems found are not major deficiencies.
“It’s small stuff but I know to the apartment owner it may not be small, particularly in this economy,” Jordan said.
There are more the 600 apartments in Rockland in about 150 apartment buildings. This does not include ones in duplexes or single-family homes that are rented and which are not covered under the inspection law.
Assistant Fire Chief Adam Miceli said rarely does he find an apartment building that meets all the codes.
Jordan said that is because many of the apartment buildings were large single-family homes that were converted to multiple apartments.
The most common significant problem found is inadequate stairways. He said in older homes that have two sets of stairs, the rear stairway is often too narrow and too steep to meet safety regulations when they become the primary exit for apartments.
The stairwells need to be 36 inches wide if they are the primary egress for residents.
And one of the other common deficiencies is the lack of adequate-sized windows. Any room where people sleep must have two ways to exit. One of those can be a window but they need to be a minimum of 5.7 square feet, he said.
The chief acknowledged that landlords have expressed frustration with the requirement that inspections be done before sales can occur.
Rockland Assessor Dennis Reed said the requirement, as well as the down economy, have combined to bring apartment building sales to a slow pace.
Tim Payson owns seven buildings in the Rockland area with a total of 40 units.
Payson said a combination of factors have led to a financial strain. He said when he purchased the buildings he paid what was then fair market value but since then the market has declined, fuel costs have skyrocketed, and insurance and taxes have increased.
Payson said the city’s apartment inspection law, however, has added to the difficulties.
“In theory, it’s an effective way to make sure properties are safe. Unfortunately it completely freezes things up,” Payson said.
He said most landlords have to spend $30,000 to $75,000 to meet the work required from the inspections. He said stairwell work is among the most expensive.
The inspection requirements have reduced the equities of buildings by 30 percent, he said. The decline in equity means landlords can’t borrow money from banks to do the work.
Chief Jordan maintained that the inspections done by the department and the code office are also an economic development tool. He said once the work is done on the buildings they become more valuable and have a positive effect on the surrounding neighborhood.
If the problems are not egregious, the department will give landlords up to 12 months to correct issues. He said the landlords must present a plan of correction much sooner.
The department encourages the installation of sprinklers in apartment buildings, but they are not required. He said, however, the installation of sprinklers can offset the need to do other major work.
However, if there are only a couple of doors or windows that need to be replaced, owners generally will decide to do that work rather than install sprinklers.
The chief said these inspections are why there are so fewer fires compared to 20 or 30 years ago.
“Our goal is to put ourselves out of business,” the chief said.
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Apartment inspection law improves safety but costs landlords, slows markets”
Great lede. I empathize with the smaller property owners. But there is no proposal or call to action here. “Let ’em burn?” is that the option?
Sounds like the fire inspectors are reasonably sensitive to the issue (give owners a break for a while) but that’s well down into the copy. Also ”
“That’s a 9-11 disaster every year,” he noted, adding that the United States has the worst record for number of fire deaths of any industrialized nation in the world. “Or “turn to the business-savvy and consumer aware government we elected in Maine to competently resolve this serious issue?”
Oh. Nevermind.
I said no in the poll because health and safety inspections should not be tied to the sale of the property. If it’s right to inspect rental properties for fire safety then it should apply to all rental properties. I don’t think a landlord who has owned the place for 50 years should be exempt from anything a new owner has to do when it comes to health and safety issues. Don’t do anything to delay the sales process. The smart buyer is going to inspect the property anyway. The sooner it closes escrow, the sooner it gets fixed (or torn down).
I’ve been in the inspection end of this. Rental properties can be inspected at any time. Code Enforcement doesn’t have enough inspectors to go into all of them on a regular basis. If a complaint comes in, they inspect. If remodeling or renovations are done, they inspect. It comes down to manpower, which comes down to tax dollars.
They would have to charge fees to cover the cost of mandatory periodic inspections and the fee will be high if it’s going to be a very thorough inspection. It’s really the renter who is paying for it. One problem I’ve seen is that some renters have no idea that something is a code violation. They think the landlord can fix it whenever he feels like it.
I think it is only common sense that apartments are inspected every so often (in my opinion, it should be every 5 years) just to ensure that they are safe to live in. As buildings age, things start breaking, and if they aren’t fixed it can cause more large scale problems in the future, which then could make the buildings uninhabitable and then it would be a major loss for the landlord when they could have just made a few small adjustments every few years.
I agree, and some, after owning an old building for 20 years with no or little maintenance and all the profit having been sucked out, the owner then abandons it with a huge tax lien for the town to tear down (after it turns into a squatter’s crack house for years). Not pretty.
They definitely need regular inspections and code enforcement.
Every apartment should have to be inspected like atleast once every 3 years to make sure that it is up to code and good for fire safety
I believe individual homes should be inspected regularly to make sure they are safe to live in. If rental properties need inspection, why not have routine inspections of every dwelling? Are renters the only ones who need fire safety and code enforcement in their homes? What about the bank’s or the insurer’s interests here?
If apartment buildings should be inspected before being sold, why not every home?
Apartment buildings need to be inspected for health and safety of tenants, who don’t hold a mortgage or any ownership responsibilities or rights. Homes, prior to purchasing and in relation to a prospective loan from an bank are typically inspected to protect , not the loan applicant, but the bank’s investment.
If a bank wishes to continue to protect it’s interest with relation to it’s investment, then the bank should pay for it. There’s a difference between renting, and paying a mortgage. You never accrue equity renting, and you don’t pay property taxes….but neither does a bank. We shouldn’t be protecting a bank’s investment, they are quite capable of doing that on their own.
Banks do not generally do any building inspections, they do however, have an appraisal done whenever a buyer is obtaining a mortgage or a re-finance.
There’s minimal fire safety rules associated with single family homes or duplexes (article notes 3 fam and greater subject to the rules), conditions that some might view as antiquated or deficient are generally grandfathered. There’s a myraid of reasons for this difference, most associated with non-owner occupancies and shear mass of the bldg. No reason to inspect if there’s no real applicable regs.
Most people who buy houses buy them to live in. Most would not want their family or themselves living in a building with code violations much less a fire-trap. All one needs to do is read some stories about how a few landlords are slumlords and you have the answer to your question.
Most of the housing stock in Maine are older buildings. The older multi-family buildings which were converted from large single family buildings were covered under existing code requirements at the time they were converted.
Now goverment regulators are trying the apply current code requirements to these existing mulit-family dwellings. This will cause great expense to owners having to comply with the current code laws. The cost to change window sizes and create new stairways can be prohibitive.
If goverment regulators are serious about protecting all Maine residences they should apply code regulations equally to all buildings not simply the multi-family buildings. It is unfair and irresponsible to put different regulations on the backs of some owners while exempting the majority of single family owners.
The chief said these inspections are why there are so fewer fires compared to 20 or 30 years ago.Changing windows and increasing stairway width lowers the number of fires??
I have played with the notion of purchasing apartment buildings for years.
Every time I have done a “walk-though” all I’ve ever seen in these buildings is deferred maintenance. It would take more to do repairs in multi-units than you could get in any return. I just could not live with myself if someone was hurt or killed in a property I owned because of code violations.
Don’t do it! Our state government will work against you every step of the way….I have owned buildings for 18 years, kept them to code, paid exorbitant taxes, complied with rules that no regular home has to comply with, and now according to this article, I will not be able to sell them because you can’t just reconfigure stairways and other structural things like that…this is just mind blowing. The assumptions are that the landlords are the ones causing the fires but if you pay attention to reports of fires it is most often caused by some error of someone dwelling there…like improper disposal of cigarette butts, candles, smoking in bed, etc.
If it saves lives then we should do it. Many people just don’t know that they are in violation and would welcome the inspections to highlight those area’s. Of course, folks who don’t care, view renters as disposable, will not.
Some safety regulations are necessary, but others are completely destroying the use of many buildings. Go into any downtown these days and look up at the vacant upper floors of older buildings. Due to ADA regulations, it would cost tens or hundreds of thousands to make these usable for people in wheelchairs. Instead they sit vacant. These types of regulations which force everyone to comply with the needs of 0.002% of the population are a big reason our economy is anemic.
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Anyone that would purchase a dwelling without a proper building inspection is simply foolish anyway, regardless of any ordinance.
part of the reason for insurance costs going up is the failure to update the buildings to code. If the code is followed then there is less loss and or threat of loss. We often overlook these as a nucence when in fact if you correct the nucence in the first place the cost would not continue to go up. The chief is right all the rules/regs are from incidents of poor contruction habits and the lack of proper inpections to correct those. I guess what you hear most often is where is common sense. They tried that and it did not work thus the regulations.
So just because it’s hard and costs money it shouldn’t be done? Come on. We need to have certain standards here.
I had to laugh when I read the story and the posts from complaining landlords. I know quite a few people who rent and they pay more for the rent on their small apts in shabby buildings than they would pay for a nice little house or mobile home on their own property. Perhaps if so many landlords did not just see thier buildings as cash cows and saw them as investments they wouldn’t be so upset by the new rules and the costs.