On September 26, 2018, Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) introduced S. 3503, the American Housing and Economic Mobility Act, which seeks to help bring down costs for renters and buyers and level the playing field so working families everywhere can find a decent place to live at a decent price."" The bill would invest $445 billion in several existing programs including the National Housing Trust Fund

Over the years many MHCO members have asked for a generic set of rules and regulations.  Attached is a copy of a generic set for your review.  Please be advised that any changes to  existing rules will require following a process outlined in statute (ORS 90.610) for residents currently living in your community.  MHCO has developed FORM 60 to use when changing your rules and regulations.  Your community rules are for you to develop and implement.  Hopefully this set of generic rules and regulations will give you some ideas for where your rules fall short.  Remember - all rules and regulations need to be implemented consistently and thoroughly.

By:  The Oregonian Editorial Board

Printed 9-16-18

Portland's elected officials are doing their part to promote the $652.8 million regional housing bond going to voters this November. They have contributed to  the campaign, offered their heartfelt support in public meetings and signed on as official endorsers for the bond.

But if they really want to help get and keep families housed, they should focus on how their own policies stand in the way. Because regardless of the bond's success or failure, the duration and severity of this housing crisis hinge on whether leaders encourage the market as a whole to add more housing or quash it.

Unfortunately, a sweeping proposal being developed by Portland City Commissioner Chloe Eudaly falls squarely in the latter category.

Eudaly announced months ago that her office was looking at the process with which landlords screen potential tenants. The intent, policy director Jamey Duhamel told The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board, is to ensure fair rental practices while helping needy renters, whose monthly income, criminal background, or credit history would typically turn off potential landlords.

The motivation seems understandable. The method, however, leaves much to be desired. Eudaly's eight-page proposal as currently drafted is heavy-handed, overly complicated and forces so much financial and legal risk onto landlords that many may opt to leave the rental business altogether. And the bigger question remains: How do these policies make housing any more affordable?

Among the many concerns in the latest version released: landlords aren't allowed to require that applicants show a monthly income of more than twice the monthly rent, even though three times monthly rent is more typical as assurance that a tenant can afford the payments. 

Landlords must go through an extensive and confusing matrix of questions in evaluating whether an applicant's criminal history merits a denial. And landlords must issue a written explanation to tenants who are denied after being vetted. The "notice of denial" must detail the reasons for turning down the applicant and establish that they are "highly and substantially more probably to be true than not that the applicant as a tenant will adversely affect the substantial, legitimate, non-discriminatory interest of the landlord."

It's not just a daunting set of poorly-written requirements. It's also an invitation to rejected applicants to sue.

Duhamel said Eudaly's office is focusing on how to "fine-tune" the proposal, which is tentatively scheduled to go before the City Council next month, to ease the administrative burden. But the flaws in the policy aren't going to be fixed by fine-tuning. The problems are baked into the fundamental assumptions underlying the policy.

For example, the screening proposal seems to assert that the city - not landlords - should get to decide how much financial risk landlords should bear. Citizens have not and should not hand over that kind of authority to city commissioners who believe their policy choices trump an individual's financial autonomy.

It also fails to consider that there are many landlords and affordable-housing groups that already accept tenants with criminal histories or credit problems. They do so not by following a rigid list of criteria but after considering the mix of tenants or other location-specific issues that make a tenant more suitable in one building than another.

And it neglects to address the underlying reason that people are struggling to find affordable places to live - a lack of housing on every income level caused by years of underbuilding. Instead, such onerous mandates on landlords - with limited ways to protect against the risk - could prompt some to drastically raise rent when units become vacant or take the property out of the rental market entirely.

Duhamel said that, in her opinion, only a handful of landlords would likely get out of the business altogether, dismissing "what if" concerns as "fearmongering." But she acknowledges the city has no data on how a previous policy - mandatory relocation assistance to tenants whose leases are not renewed - may have affected the rental market.

Others, who admittedly represent the landlord viewpoint, say it has definitely led to the loss of many rentals. Since the beginning of the year, 30 landlords who used the Garcia Group property management firm decided to sell their properties, owner Ron Garcia told The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board. That's a tenth of the ownership portfolio, he said, and many of the properties were condos or single-family homes that likely went to buyers seeking to occupy, rather than rent, the property.

The region's housing crisis is real with thousands of homeless people living on the street and many more on the brink as wages don't keep pace with rent. But landlords' screening policies aren't the reason Portland is in a housing crisis. Leaders should focus on the true culprit - the need for more housing at all income levels - and make sure they don't unwittingly become an accomplice.

-Helen Jung for The Oregonian/OregonLive Editorial Board

By Gordon R. Friedman - The Oregonian/OregonLive

Published 8-20-18

The Portland City Council will soon consider an ordinance to cap what landlords can charge for security deposits and limit how they may use renters' credit and criminal conviction history to deny them tenancy.

"Screening criteria and security deposit reform" will be the subject of an upcoming council agenda item, Commissioner Chloe Eudaly wrote in an August 14 post to her Facebook page. The ordinance is scheduled for a hearing September 20, said Eudaly spokeswoman Margaux Weeke.

It is exactly the kind of move that Oregon landlords feared when they banded together to try to raise $2 million to fight those and other restrictions they say will undermine their businesses.

Policymakers in other cities have also explored regulating security deposits, citing mounting pressures on renters who struggle to save up cash for move-in fees. New York City's comptroller in July introduced a deposit-limiting measure. The Seattle City Council adopted a similar ordinance in December 2016, and landlords filed a lawsuit to challenge it.

In Portland, landlords may currently charge what they like as a security deposit, and there are few regulations over how deposits must be returned after a tenant vacates. That would change under Eudaly's ordinance. In the Facebook post, Eudaly described one an effect of the ordinance as "limit security deposit requirements."

The ordinance would also change how landlords may use information about potential tenants. Property owners typically perform criminal records and credit history checks on rental applicants. Some renter advocates have described the background checks as offering landlords a pretense for discriminating against those with criminal pasts or poor credit.

Eudaly said in her Facebook post that changing how landlords may use information about rental applicants to deny them tenancy is in part intended to "reduce barriers to housing" and "prevent discrimination."

According to a draft of the ordinance provided by Eudaly's office, she has considered establishing a system that requires landlords to approve tenants on a first-come, first-served basis, though a minimum credit score would still be allowed.

To deny applicants, landlords would be required to rank applicants on their credit history, criminal convictions and housing record and give them a chance to provide favorable information.  

The draft ordinance includes a list of crimes that are not to be judged by landlords as meaning a tenant convicted of them would likely harm the property or cause the premises to be unsafe, if the applicant was sentenced at least three years prior or released from prison one year prior. The list includes felony assault and battery, felony burglary or breaking-and-entering, stalking and misdemeanor domestic violence, dealing or manufacturing illegal drugs, and non-forcible sex offenses, among others.

This is a multiple part series on a private owner of a Manufactured Home Community willingly attempting to sell that Community to an Association of tenants within that Community. Riverbend MHP is a 39 space community located within the city limits of Clatskanie, OR. The motivation of the seller was discussed in the first part. In this second part, the owner meets with the Deputy Director and the Real Estate and Cooperative Development Manager for CASA of Oregon. The framing, presentation and negotiation of the Agreement to Purchase" is discussed.

In this second part

By Dale Strom

Dale Strom is a second generation Manufactured Home Community landlord. He is a Board Member, past President and current Treasurer of MHCO.

This is a multiple part series on a private owner of a Manufactured Home Community willingly attempting to sell that Community to an Association of tenants within that Community. Riverbend MHP is a 39 space community located within the city limits of Clatskanie, OR. In the first part of this series, the motivation of the owner is revealed on why he wanted to work with CASA of Oregon exclusively rather than offering this Community for sale to all interested parties.

There came that time when I knew it is time to get out. This has also occurred several times in my life about situations and commitments that I was in. This is the time that I want to consider getting out of one of my communities. For good. No, I don't want to look at the Federal IRS code 1031 where I can exchange a real estate property for another like kind property. I mean for good!

In the years that MHCO has been involved with the Landlord Tenant Coalition, many aspects of the relationship that Landlords have with Tenants have been discussed. Differences of opinion and understandings have been hashed out. And laws in the Oregon Revised Statutes have been created or at the very least... have been revised.

At the beginning of this decade, a Statewide group going by the name of CASA of Oregon thought that they could start a program where tenants of manufactured home communities could organize, research (with due diligence), negotiate with a seller, close and finally operate a facility. (Would love to see how an organized park owned group will handle a late rent check, dog poop in a common area that can be traced back to the dog and its owner, or God forbid, an abandonment).

State law currently requires a potential seller (which is me in this case) to contact the tenants in the community to state the sellers intentions, and gives those tenants an opportunity to form an Association for the purposes of acquiring that community.

The interesting point of this is I want out. No more looking for other properties. No more looking at Cap Rates. No more P&L's. No more due diligence. No more 1031's. Out, for good! Realize now that when sold, the tax collector will come knocking asking for their cut. The IRS will. But what about the Oregon Department of Revenue?

According to John VanLandingham, an attorney at Lane County Legal Aid and the Oregon Law Center The capital gains breaks are found in the Oregon Revised Statutes following ORS 317.401 (for corporate taxes) and ORS 316.792 (for personal taxes).The specific language

This article is not intended as legal advice for any specific issue that might arise, since every situation is different. Always consult a knowledgeable landlord attorney with your specific legal issues.

By Mark Busch, Attorney

A Multnomah County jury just awarded an injured tenant over $20 million for injuries the tenant suffered on an apartment walkway that failed. The tenant partially fell through a hole in a concrete walkway that crumbled beneath his footstep. He ended up with injuries to his right leg and right knee that required surgery.

The tenant sued two related landlord companies that owned and managed the large apartment complex in southeast Portland. The tenant's attorneys alleged negligence and failure to maintain common areas for normal and reasonably foreseeable uses" as required by Oregon law. The jury awarded damages in the sum of $45

Calling today a great day for America, American workers, and small businesses, President Trump signed into law S. 2155, the Economic Growth