In Florida, enacting rent control isn’t easy. Landlords in Florida can’t raise rent during the term of the lease. My tenants sign a lease for a year, and the rent is laid out in the lease. That is the amount they pay for that year. When the lease is up, we can negotiate for another year, but that deal is separate from the year before.
To restrict the new lease, Florida statute 125.0103 is pretty explicit. There are a number of steps that have to be followed.
- The city has to declare a housing emergency. Such governing body makes and recites in such measure its findings establishing the existence in fact of a housing emergency so grave as to constitute a serious menace to the general public and that such controls are necessary and proper to eliminate such grave housing emergency.
- The city puts rent control on the ballot.
- The measure must be approved by a majority of the voters in that city.
- The rent control doesn’t apply to seasonal rentals or to “luxury rentals.” A luxury rental is defined as a rental that would have cost more than $250 in 1977. There is nothing in there about adjusting that amount for inflation, but even if a court does so, according to the US inflation calculator, that would today be a rent of $1,222. There are virtually no rentals for that amount.
- The rent control is only in effect for one year.
- To go for another year, the entire process has to be repeated.
Even so, Orange County decided to go for it back in April. In August, the county moved to include it in the next election. Yesterday, a judge approved the measure to be on the ballot in November. The judge ruled that the landlords who sued could not prove that they would suffer harm merely because the measure is on the ballot because the measure may not pass.
I imagine that it will pass. There are a lot more grifters than there are landlords, especially in blue Orange county. I couldn’t find the wording of the proposed rent control ordnance. I imagine that there will be court cases to decide the amounts, which rentals it will apply to, and more. This case will be an important one to watch, as it will have a HUGE effect on not just the Florida rental market, but the Florida residential real estate market as a whole.
7 Comments
D · September 16, 2022 at 10:18 am
How is that even remotely fair, let alone constitutional.
Let’s just assume that “landlord” means a a husband and wife who have a little skill or luck in life and own an extra house or two. Those houses are rented by “husband and wife” couples.
That’s “2 landlords” voting to stop this bullcrap against 2 * “2 couple families”.
2 < 4
When did Florida stop following the constitution by allowing other people to vote to control *your* property?
Divemedic · September 16, 2022 at 12:33 pm
It’s been the law in Florida since the 1980s. It’s just that no one up until now has tried to pass rent control.
Big Ruckus D · September 16, 2022 at 3:44 pm
Fair and constitutional? Do come on now. There is no fairness, only Zuul. And the constitution is worth less than an Enron stock certificate. A piece of paper written fancily in fountain pen doesn’t constrain the tendencies of assholes intent on behaving badly, just like gun laws don’t stop nogs from shooting people. Violence does, but the testicular fortitude to employ that solution is badly lacking at this moment.
This is the reality of where we are as a country: there is only power, those who have it (and want very much to keep it), and those who don’t. Rules governing the fair and proper aplication of power? Heh. Fuck that noise, it’s pure fiction. It always was, and some were just granted a temporary respite from being able to see that clearly.
The cracks in the facade were already well evident for those who cared to notice long before I was even born, and that’s 5 decades ago now, more or less. Now, the obvious disregard for “the rules” is repeatedly kicking everyone in the nutsack while the shitbags holding themselves out as the ruling class are asking “whatchu gonna do about it, bitch?” Well, what indeed?
The eventual answer to that one question will probably determine the general state of human existence for the next couple of centuries. Better chose the right answer, or it will be a boot stomping on a human face…for what may as well be forever, as none of us alive today will outlive it.
D · September 16, 2022 at 4:28 pm
I can’t agree more.
BobF · September 16, 2022 at 12:37 pm
Dr. Thomas Sowell would have been lynched in Orlando. not because of his skin color, but because of his fiscal knowledge and expertise.
Danny's not here · September 16, 2022 at 5:08 pm
Wyndham will love that. And what about Airbnb?
SiG · September 17, 2022 at 7:52 am
The most proven way to reduce the number of rental properties is to enact rent controls. When a bunch of landlords say, “if I can’t meet my expenses, I’m selling,” somebody with a buttload of money will buy up all the property for sale. Where possible, turn it into private homes.
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