Legislative Victories
Mandatory Rental Registration:
Retaliatory Evictions:
Sub Metering:
- In 2018 emphasis was placed on reducing evictions filed in Franklin County.
- The City of Columbus proposed requiring all rental units to register with the City and pay a fee of $25-50 per unit and undergo inspection prior to re-renting the unit.
- The fee and time involved would have been an enormous cost to rental property owners and inconvenienced potential renters.
- CAA was able to prevent this legislation from being introduced.
- CAA members own about 150,000 apartments. A $50 per unit fee would have cost the industry $7.5 million dollars a year.
Retaliatory Evictions:
- The City of Columbus proposed changing the retaliatory eviction ordinance that would allow more renters to claim an eviction was retaliatory.
- The proposed ordinance increased penalties and would have prevented an owner from evicting a tenant for any reason for 6 months after a finding that an owner filed a retaliatory eviction.
- CAA worked with City Council and the City Attorney to re-draft the ordinance so it would not conflict with state law and was fair to both the resident and the owner.
Sub Metering:
- The Ohio General Assembly introduced several bills to regulate sub metering of utilities.
- One version could have prevented sub metering, another would have classified owners that sub meter utilities and subjected owners to costly regulatory requirements.
- The Ohio Apartment Association and other collaborators were successful in keeping these bills from becoming law.