New Energy Efficiency Ordinance for Rental Property

[Alex Aronson]

At my local REIA meeting yesterday, I learned about a City of Memphis, TN proposed ordinance that has me concerned and I want to know if other cities out their have a similar ordinance.

Essentially this ordinance requires rental property to be as energy efficient as its neighborhood profile for similar sized property. For example, if a neighborhood of 1,000 SQFT SFH homes have an average utility bill of $200 a month, and my tenant calls the utility company to complain about a $400 utility bill. This ordinance may require me to repair the property.

This ordinance is not finalized and the amount of the fine, how big of a variance from the neighborhood profile, or the standard operating procedure on how to determine if the issue is a building or tenant issue has not been establish.

This ordinance is coming out because we have some slum lords who have property which have utility consumption that should be for homes twice the size of the property.

If anyone knows of a city with a similar ordinance please share. My local REIA as well as the Apartment Associations are trying to address this ordinance before it gets put into law. My REIA members believe a tenant should have a safe place to live and to have a utility bill that is fair for the size of home, however we are concern if this ordinance is written too vaguely, it will become costly to the members and as a tool for tenants to abuse the system.