www.cumberlandlandlords.com
ALOC NEWS
October 7, 2002 Vol. 8, Issue 10
The battle continues in Hagerstown, where the Mayor and
City Council seems intent on passing a very strict Housing Code. The
Washington County Property Owners Association, which is also part of the
Maryland Property Owners Network with ALOC, has been fighting hard against
it, but chances are they will have little luck. The City Council has already voted in favor of
introducing the licensing program and it is headed for a final vote by
October 22nd. We hope that our colleagues in Washington County
Unfortunately for the poor beleaguered landlord there is
little if any help that can be expected from our local, state or federal
government. This was made evident during recent drug arrests in Hagerstown
where the local authorities are considering charging the landlords, who
owned the property where the arrests took place, as accessories. We assume
that this includes nuisance issues as well as drug issues. It seems we property owners, who try to invest and
improve our real estate and plan for our financial future, are now a few
notches below drug dealers and baby killers. It is indeed sad to see how
low our governments have sunk when the simple ownership of a property now
places us in the crosshairs of their cockeyed policies. The government
can’t seem to get a handle on the real perpetrators so they go after the
landlord. What’s worse is that they are using our tax money to go after our
interests. Indeed the parents are feeding on their own young! When you consider whom to vote for this November please
keep in mind the way we are being treated. Also remember that many candidates,
especially certain City Council candidates, have made it clear that they
believe that neighborhoods with rental housing are nothing but trouble. The
only way to clean up an area is through individual home ownership. This
Neanderthal thinking flies in the face of common sense, many people can’t
afford home ownership or don’t want the responsibility. VOTE
ACCORDINGLY!! Alfred Singer from Baltimore has relayed information
to us regarding a website for Georgia landlords and we have visited it. It
contains a lot of good information; just make sure you don’t get their laws
and regulations confused with ours! The address is www.georgialandlord.com. It will certainly be an interesting election with the
diverse group of candidates we have running for various offices. The race
between Bud Willetts and Tricia Wolfe was especially close with only 40 or
so votes separating the two. One hates to lose by so close of a margin.
While Willetts lost out to Tricia, he won a seat on the Republican Central
Committee and in fact was the top vote getter! We can expect to see
Willetts run again in the future for elected office of some type! Bob Ehrlich has certainly solidified his position in the
race for governor with the polls showing him even or ahead of Kathleen
Kennedy Townsend. Considering how the Glendening-Townsend administration
has treated landlords, gun owners and the state’s budget we are in need of
a change. When you to the polls in November keep in mind that we
need to get away from the one party system that has dominated Maryland
politics for the past 40 or so years. A strong conservative governor could
easily reign in the budget, reduce government and streamline some of the
regulations we have to cope with each day. We have attached some information about lawsuits pending
in Rhode Island regarding lead paint manufacturers, which recently appeared
in the Washington Post. While we all certainly don’t want to see any
industry vilified for manufacturing products, they are truly more to blame
for the lead paint situation than we are.
Rental Property
Inspections Dust Wipe Tests/Visual
Inspections 301-777-1369 MDE: Certified Lead
Paint Visual Inspector HUD: Certified Lead
Sampling Technician 9-30-02 Lead Inspections
for Rental Housing Visual Inspections and
Dust Wipes 201 Massachusetts Ave. Cumberland, MD 21502 301-722-8328 3-03
Hagerstown
Registration
Internet Site
Election
Results
Lead Paint
Lawsuits in Rhode Island
Richard Bonig
Carey Walker
Lead
Abatement - Lead Risk Reduction Rental
Property Maintenance Contractor Telephone
301-729-1086 FAX
301-729-4801 - Pager 301-546-0221 3-30
/ 9-30 VISUAL INSPECTOR MDE
Inspections Lead Dust Wipes LEAD PAINT
SUPERVISOR Telephone/FAX: 301-729-2994 1-30
Highland
Enterprises LLC
Robert Saville
“Excellent Rates”
Miscellaneous
Allegany College has lead paint training scheduled as
follows; Worker Oct. 17, 2002, Supervisor Oct. 17-18, 2002 and Visual
Inspector Oct. 15-16, 2002. Contact AC at 301-784-5341 for registration
information. One of our members recently had the opportunity to sit
through a long list of landlord tenant cases this past week and some of the
cases were interesting. There always seems to be something learned when
attending court sessions. The one primary thing that was apparent was the lack of
preparation by many of the landlords present. One agent for an out of town
owner did not have copies of the court papers filed and was constantly embarrassed
by math errors, overcharges for late fees and other problems which
stretched out the morning for those of us who were farther down the
list. The other common problem was the failure to properly
calculate the 5 % late fee. The handling of other charges such as electric, water
and sewage fees were also bungled when the landlord was asked to find in
their lease the exact provisions indicating that these charges were to be
treated as rent. The best way to avoid this situation is to avoid referring
these charges as anything other than rent. If you try to break them out and
call them water or sewage charges they will probably get thrown out. If you
refer to ALOC’s lease on the front page it specifically states that any
utility costs or other charges are to be treated as rent. When going to court have copies of all pertinent papers
such as leases, inspection papers, an accounting of the charges and any
rent payments received from the tenant. And when you sit at the front table
speak loudly and clearly into the microphone!
t
The Leases and other forms have been upgraded to reflect
Law changes made in recent years and are available now. Please Note
the change in prices!! ALOC has available leases, rental applications and
tenant checklists for sale, at cost, to members. The cost for each item is
as follows: Lease @ $ 0.50
Rental Application @ $ 0.50
Move in Checklist @ $ 0.50
Lead Paint Brochures,
both EPA and Maryland and document receipt@ $2.50 for the set. Document Receipt for MDE and EPA brochures (disclosure)
@ $ 0.25 These forms are kept at Jeff Hutter's office, TWR Comm.
at 549 N. Centre Street. Any paid member can stop by and pick up whatever
they need, however we ask that you call first with your order so that the
forms can be ready and waiting for you. Please call at
least 24 hours in advance as these are made to order. When you call 777-2692 ext 113, you can talk to Pam,
Gary or Sean Please note: We do not keep MDE or City Housing
registration forms on hand. J. Jeff J. Jeffrey Hutter President Carey Walker
Vice President Stephanie Wharton
Secretary J. Jeffrey Hutter
Treasurer Board of
Directors Clarence Anderson Steve Jenkins Bob Saville Bob Miles Peace, in
international affairs, is a period of cheating between two periods of
fighting. Ambrose Bierce It is better to
rise from life as from a banquet-neither thirsty nor drunken. Aristotle October 14, 2002 November 11, 2002 No Meeting in December January 13, 2003 February 10, 2003 March 10,2003 April 14, 2003 Meetings are held at
the South Cumberland Library on Race and Seymour St. at 7 PM TWR
Communications 301-777-2692 9-30-02 The leading supplier of quality
high speed Internet Access in Allegany-Garrett-Washington Counties and
surrounding areas of West Virginia using K56 Flex modems. TWR provides
other computer services including training, computer repairs, networking,
website hosting and Internet advertising. TWR is an agent for Cellular
One, operates a wide area network with wide area paging and mobile 2-way
radio. Check us out at twr@hereintown.net The price of
ALOC Leases, Lead Booklets and other forms has been increased to cover
higher costs of reproduction as well as the change in format of the EPA
booklet, which takes more paper. A-1 Inspections, Inc. PRE-PURCHASE/PRE-SETTLEMENT INSPECTIONS RESIDENTIAL
AND COMMERCIAL LEAD INSPECTIONS 301-724-5323 9-30 9-30 Credit Bureau, Inc. We have been in the
business of building databases for over 50 years. Let us build one for you!
For those of you contributing rental history, thank you. For those who
haven’t called me, it’s easy. Mike Wright
301-729-5202 5-03
Leases and other Documents
ALOC Officers
Thoughts for
the Month
Meeting Schedule
ALOC FORMS PRICE CHANGES
Please refer to the prices listed above!
PHONE 301-724-LEAD