Legislative Session - 2nd Legislative Update - 01/23/24
LEGISLATIVE SESSION 2024
Week 2 Update
Tuesday, January 23rd, 2024
The 2024 legislative session is shaping up to be another busy year, and hundreds of bills have already been filed. The first week is now behind us. The following are some updates on the issues we are facing. For information on individual issues see further below:
Click Here to view our legislative Tracking Sheet
HB 169, Property Condition Disclosure Requirements, Neil Walter, (R) Santa Clara
H.B. 169 would require a landlord to provide a prospective renter with a written disclosure describing any defects in the rental unit. This notice would require the notice to be provided during the application process so that a prospective tenant can use this information when deciding whether to sign the lease or not.
This notice is modeled after real estate sale disclosures that require property owners to document any known defect in the property and disclose these defects to a prospective buyer.
CURRENTLY, under tort and property law, if a landlord knows of any defect on a property but intentionally doesn’t disclose that defect, the landlord would be liable for any damage the defect causes a tenant. However, this rule is not written down in statute.
We are currently working with the bill sponsor on alternative solutions to his bill and will update our members regularly.
SB 58 Property Tax Administration Amendments, Grover, (R), Provo
In our previous update, we provided a lot of details surrounding this issue. In Utah, a property that is used as someone's primary residence receives a 40% discount on their property taxes each year. Long-term rental property (longer than 30 days) qualifies for this discount. The issue currently is that county tax assessors are asking landlords for unreasonable documentation to prove that a rental unit is being used for residential use and not another form of investment or short-term use.
S.B. 58 is currently being amended to fix a few technical issues but would limit the county to asking a landlord to provide one of the following documents: (1) a copy of the lease agreement, (2) a copy of your federal tax return showing the property is used for residential purposes, or (3) a copy of the insurance policy showing the property is used for residential purposes.
If this bill passes, instead of asking for a lot of unreasonable evidence that the property is residential, they will only be able to ask a landlord to provide one of those 3 things.
SB 116 Eviction Notice Requirements Amendments, Jen Plumb (D) Salt Lake City
Status: Passed out of Senate Business and Labor Committee on 1/22, (7 votes for – 1 vote against), next up vote in full the Senate
S.B. 116 will require animal control to post certain notices if they remove an animal from a property where a tenant has been evicted. Once amended it won’t impact our industry too much.
The reason it is on our radar is because the bill drafters gave it a scary name: “Eviction Notice Requirements Amendments.” We have been in contact with the Senator to help her pass legislation that will protect renters’ pets during the eviction process. The legislation is not targeted at owners and managers – it targets animal control agencies. This bill may actually be good for the industry and help make animal control more responsive to property owners who have abandoned animals after an eviction.
HOA Rules
There are currently a few HOA bills. There are a couple of bills looking to clarify what an HOA can require of rental units within their community that we are supporting.
First, we want HOAs to allow all owners to perform radon remediation if it is needed (some HOAs are denying these requests because they alter the common areas of the community)
Second, we don’t want HOA to force us to use their lease agreement. They can require an addendum, but we are looking to clarify this.
Last, while HOAs can regulate how long a lease agreement has to be, we want to clarify that they can’t require longer than 6 months initial lease and can’t prohibit month to month after.
Other Issues we are aware of:
There is no update on eviction expungement, Notice of rent increase. However, we do have an update on property management licensing and the division of real estate from our week 1 update. To read about this issue click here .
If you are interested in being involved in our government affairs committee, which meets every Friday at 10 am during the legislative session, let us know and we will get you involved. Committee information: https://www.rhautah.org/government-affairs-committee