Minimum Housing: A Way Around Residential Inspection Limits?

<p>Tim Taylor is both a housing inspector and the appointed minimum housing public officer for the town of Tooltime, North Carolina. For years he has conducted periodic inspections of dwellings throughout the town in accordance with his town’s periodic inspection program. When those inspections revealed minimum housing violations, he used his powers as a minimum housing public officer to ensure that the dwellings were either repaired or demolished as required (of course following the strict procedures for minimum housing actions as required by law). He has never given much thought to the distinction between his role as an inspector and his role as a minimum housing public officer. That is, until the summer of 2011.</p> <p>It was during that summer that the General Assembly enacted S.L. 2011-281 (the “Rental Inspection Law”), significantly curtailing an inspector’s authority to conduct periodic inspections of dwellings. Under that law (as described in an earlier post), inspectors may conduct periodic inspections of residential property only when there is reasonable cause to do so. Reasonable cause is defined in the law to include circumstances such as a history of code violations by the owner or landlord, a request for an inspection, knowledge of a violation, or the presence of a violation visible from outside the property. Tim assumed that this law effectively ended his town’s periodic inspection program as currently structured, so he suspended all periodic inspections that did not meet the new reasonable cause requirements.</p> <p>Recently, however, his decision to suspend those inspections has come under question. Town council member Al [...]</p>