The Athens City Prosecutor's Office mailed reminder letters last week to landlords of the approximately 580 rental properties who still need to turn in landlord-tenant agreements.
The agreements inform tenants of city rules on trash, recycling, barking dogs and other responsibilities that are part of being a good neighbor, said Mayor Paul Wiehl. It is also intended to make landlords aware of these city laws.
If the landlords of these properties do not file the agreements with the code enforcement office by the Sept. 30 deadline, City Prosecutor Pat Lang said in July he will press charges against them. The charge would be a minor misdemeanor punishable by as much as a $100 fine for every day of noncompliance. Only landlords, not tenants, would be charged for delinquent forms, he said.
It's a law
and it's important to enforce the law Lang said. It seems to me that if we have laws on the books they should be enforced from a basic fairness standpoint.
By last week, about 75 percent of the 2,430 rental properties have a landlord-tenant agreement on file, according to code enforcement office records. There are 4,971 rental properties in Athens, but about half are exempt because they are apartment complexes, such as Riverpark Towers.
Landlords have been required to turn the forms in since September 2006, but no enforcement and confusion about who was exempt has resulted in few forms being turned in.
The code enforcement office has not recorded the number of forms turned in from previous years, but Administrative Assistant Theresa Gerren said this year's increased enforcement has been more successful.
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