Posted on 03/15/2017 10:52:12 PM PDT by Java4Jay
Known as the "first in time" rule, the mandate forces landlords to rent to the first qualified applicant, rather than choosing the best fit from among prospective tenants.
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
I like Pacific Legal but they made no headway against agenda 21 in the Bay One fiasco.
They may find themselves losing here as well.
1. Set unattainable standards.
2. Settle for the best unqualified applicant.
Bureaucrats are stupid. I solved the landlord’s problem in one easy minute.
lol
yep!
I would write the qualifications in such a way as NO ONE qualifies :) then “choose” who to waive them for.
Or... better yet... I just wouldn’t buy property in that BS city!
The left hate private property. They do everything they can to eliminate it, while keeping the name. The ideal for them is a society where all property is owned by the state.
My ex's company did this ... the IT guy they wanted had a particular skill that no other applicant would be likely to have (fluent in Portuguese) so they used it in the required skills part of the recruitment. Completely unnecessary for the position but useful to weed out all others.
And this is what happens when you give the "Invaders" control over your money and property... You lost hearth, home and country....
MHO... :(
The first qualified applicant will probably be the gov’t for section 8 use...
What happens if you rent to the first qualified applicant, and a bit later the qualification turns out to be bogus?
Will the second qualified applicant make a legal complaint?
“Income discrimination”, yes, several other cities have tried to pass that.
The only slight advantage landlords have is that no one can yet force you to join the Section 8 program, so you CAN refuse such people by saying I don’t meet their standards ... because you aren’t willing to join. However, the income discrimination does theoretically say you have to accept 2 people on SSDI.
I know there are cities and landlords who get around that by setting up rental units specifically for the elderly and prohibiting younger relatives from moving in.
The other solution is setting rent somewhat above the level Section 8/housing vouchers set, since many tenants won’t pay anything beyond the “housing money” they get. Yes this increases rents for the general market, but it is a legal way to screen out those you don’t want via unbiased financial criteria.
What gets interesting is if you have someone showing up with an EITC tax refund saying “can I pay the next couple months rent with this?” So we use the rent to typical income ratio, which screens out those cases, too.
Welcome to Seattle: The All-Condo City
So now soon, all the recently unemployed due to the $15.00 per hour minimum wage will have no chance of finding a place to live because the rental market will cease to exist.
So long as he is the first "qualified" applicant.
Do I have that correct?
God how I hate this city.
Left in 2002, happy to see Snoqualamie Pass in the rear-view mirror.
Now in Tacoma, many years later. Much more sane, if ill managed.
“Sponsors contended that this unprecedented restriction is needed because traditional anti-discrimination laws do not protect against unconscious prejudices.”
When they discover that “first in time” is overpopulated with groups that they don’t favor, they will throw out this law, too.
It’s pretty standard practice in the industry to rent to the first qualified applicant anyway. I work at a large management company and we don’t even take additional applications while we are still processing one. Most other large management companies operate the same way.
Most applicants will not pay the fees for an application unless they are assured the apartment is reserved for them until their application is either approved or rejected. Most landlords don’t want applicants who would apply under other circumstances anyway, since they would probably be putting in multiple applications with other landlords and would end up wasting the landlord’s time. So this is mainly a moot point.
That approach would get you sued into oblivion for discrimination in one hot minute. Every landlord has to deal with court cases from “housing testers” so you will have to prove in court that you applied rental standards objectively, without making special exceptions, or you’ll run afoul of anti-discrimination statutes and pay dearly.
Section 8 tenants are easy to avoid, you just write into the application that they must be able to take possession of the apartment within 14 days or so of the application being approved or the application is cancelled. Section 8 requires all sorts of inspections after the approval and they will never get them done in time.
Of course they can reapply, but hopefully by then you have found another applicant and can tell them the apartment is no longer available.
“The only slight advantage landlords have is that no one can yet force you to join the Section 8 program, so you CAN refuse such people by saying I don’t meet their standards ... because you aren’t willing to join.”
That’s a myth. Landlords do not have to “join” the Section 8 program, because Section 8 is a tenant-based voucher program. Only the tenants join the program, and Section 8 simply sends a portion of their rent payments to the landlord. It is explicitly illegal for landlords to refuse to accept an applicant on the grounds that they are part of that program.
There are ways to avoid renting to Section 8 applicants, but you have to be a lot more inventive and you certainly cannot come out and say that the reason has anything to do with them receiving a Section 8 voucher, or you will face fines and lawsuits.
No you can’t, not when the Lord of Political Correctness TELL YOU what qualified means :)
It’s Seattle. Sanity ends at the city limits. Hell the whole King county is very close behind.
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