The purpose of this page is to get all residential and commercial landlords who own property in Mason County – and more specifically the City of Mason – discussing issues which affect our business.
This mailing list was formed on 2-25-19 due to the City of Mason raising the possibility (and providing similar documents from another municipality) of :
-
-
- making landlords responsible for tenants’ utility deposits
- making landlords responsible for collecting monthly utility bills
- making landlords pay outstanding utility bills once a tenant has walked off
-
The city and landlords agreed that an exchange of information would benefit both sides going into the future.
The City would like the following information from the landlords:
-
-
- The owner’s name and contact for every rental property
- Notice of a tenant failing to pay rent
- Immediate notice once a tenant has walked out
-
The Landlords would like the following information from the city:
-
-
- Has a tenant been late with or defaulted on utility payments
- Has another person or business been paying a tenants utilities
-
The city stated it has averaged about $6000/year in unpaid utility bills from tenants. They also stated the average bill is about $700. This means roughly 8 bills per year are skipped out on by tenants. The city said it has sent bill collection companies after these deadbeat tenants and been successful on occasion. The city has also set up autopay and incremental payment methods. The city also said it knows it has repeat offenders who jump from home to home or new account to new account. Unfortunately, the current security deposit amount isn’t large enough to cover the average walkout – and most renters can not afford a $700-$800 security deposit.
The issue was not resolved and the city council agreed to discuss it at the next meeting. The city also asked landlords to come up with a proposal of what would be acceptable to us in regards to resolving the issue.
Admin
Posted at 15:37h, 05 MarchTest Comment