It's finally right around the corner…AAGP's 2012 APARTMENT ALL STARS event will be held on Wednesday morning, November 14, 2012 from 9 am to noon at the Ft. Washington Holiday Inn.  This year's presentation will be packed with new ideas and trends. Jackie Ramstedt, Lisa Trosein and Pete Regules will be the featured speakers. Just $59 per person AND discounts for multiples from your company. Send your leasing agents, managers and regionals.

Philadelphia City Council is making a mad dash to a  Committee hearing on its Property Maintenance Code overhaul bill. if you can make it, Tuesday, October 23, 2PM Rm 400 City Hall, we'd really appreciate it.  This is a serious, major change to their PM Code.

Brief highlights :

Bill No 120647 will make the 2009 International Property Maintenance  Code the Property Maintenance Code for the city. It would keep major portions of the current code, such as the Rental Suitability Certificate and the new Lead Paint Disclosure requirements, and add them to the 2009 International code.

It would  impose a fee of $75 per unit per year as a Rental Registration fee, with a $25,000 cap per property. 

And it would require rental owners to provide written notice to residents of the name, address, phone and other contact info of the person or persons responsible for maintenance and those who will be available at all times for emergencies.

There are many other issues awaiting discussion among stakeholders. The City Council's reason for rushing this bill to a hearing is not clear. We will testify on Tuesday  and are working with other rental owner groups, HAPCO and GPAR and continuing our talks with the city.

An increasing number of management companies are utilizing criminal screening tools to improve the safety of their communities for residents, guests and staff. At the same time, it is imperative that management companies establish a criminal screening policy that treats applicants equally and fairly.

With most criminal screening tools, leasing agents are expected to make real-time decisions about what searches should be conducted and to determine if criminal offenders should receive an “accept” or “decline” leasing decision. This places undue burden on the agents and may increase the risk of Fair Housing violations, if searches are conducted or interpreted inconsistently. Consequently, many criminal screening tools expose multifamily businesses to unnecessary risk.

What to look for in a criminal screening solution? Look for a product that:

·         Categorizes criminal records

·         Return consistent leasing decisions based on your criteria

·          Allow you to select the criminal offense categories that trigger the lease decision

·         Automatically delivers a pre-set decision to your staff

Ideally, your criminal screening product should include management reporting to monitor screening outcomes and view the results by offense type. With this insight, you can monitor staff performance and adjust screening criteria to meet business and legal demands. For additional information on criminal screening tools, click here.