Seattle City Council Approves Mandatory Inspections For Rental Houses

In a move sure to change the Seattle property management scene, the Seattle City Council unanimously approved mandatory inspections for all rental homes in Seattle on October 1, 2012.

Seattle area rental homes will now be inspected every ten years.

Seattle formerly had a ‘complaint based’ system. Tenants unions argued this was not enforced and wanted mandatory 5 year inspections.

Landlords argued that inspectors will try to justify their existence by nitpicking houses, and that “bad actors” won’t be meaningfully impacted by inspections every ten years.

It is estimated that roughly 10% of tenants live in substandard housing based on complaints.

For more on this story, read more here:

http://www.q13fox.com/news/politics/CRsTake/kcpq-the-plight-of-substandard-housing-renters-say-enough-20120919,0,4372686.story