It took weeks for my colleague Lora Pabst to obtain and analyze housing records for her story on the hundreds of code violations at apartments owned by Hyder Jaweed and Asgher Ali of North Oaks.

Even though all the records Pabst used were public, the work that went into the story gives some idea of how hard it would be for regular people to find out if landlords have a record of failing to fix leaking pipes, busted windows, rat infestations and the like. Local governments, who are typically in charge of making sure landlords keep their properties habitable, don’t generally put their databases of code violations online. When they do crack down on landlords, it’s rarely an occasion to hold a news conference or send out a press release.

Landlords always run background checks on prospective tenants to see if they have a record of ignoring bills, setting fires or selling illegal products. So why shouldn’t prospective renters be able to background their landlords?

Only 1 in about 500 calls to the HOME Line tenant assistance center tries to background their landlords in this way, Mike Vraa, the nonprofit organization’s managing attorney, told me. Vraa had these suggestions, however, on how he would check on a landlord’s record.

Vraa said he would check online property records (here’s Hennepin County’s database) to find the owner, and then put that name into small claims court. Disgruntled renters often try to get their security deposits back by suing landlords in smalls claims court, officially called the Conciliation Court.

He would also check the Housing Court to see if a landlord has filed many eviction cases, usually a sign that a number of tenants haven’t been paying their rent.

Then there’s the wild free-for-all of the Internet, available at such places as apartmentratings.com. I’ve always wondered how to deal with these online reviews, which seem to deal only in extremes. For example, one one Minneapolis apartment complex was labeled “Great Place” and “Horror Village” in the course of a week.

Would-be renters can also contact the Minnesota Attorney General to see if any class-action lawsuits have been filed against their landlord, suggested Kelly Klein, a lawyer in Edina who writes a Star Tribune column titled “Renting and the law.” She also advises that renters contact the city inspection or housing department in whatever municipality the unit is located in.

“The city knows the big landlords,” Klein said. “They’ll say, don’t rent from them” if the landlords have been the target of numerous complaints. The Better Business Bureau would also know about the worst landlords, she said.

But Vraa said that such due diligence is a rare thing when most people rent a place to live. “They basically go there, see an ad, apply and sign up,” he said.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, July 1st, 2008 at 3:56 pm and is filed under Buyer beware, Property problems. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.