Posts filed under 'Uncategorized'
APD cracks down on apartment crime
AUSTIN (KXAN) – An APD program is helping to fight crime inside Austin apartment complexes by encouraging residents to report suspicious activity.
It’s called the AROW program and it is short for Apartment Residents on Watch. It works like a neighborhood crime watch with a captain for each apartment building.
Residents meet once a month to talk about crime concerns and report those concerns to police. Austin police have implemented the program at several complexes in the East Riverside area and say they are seeing success.
Add comment October 22, 2009
Dallas woman fuming over smoking neighbor at complex
By SCOTT FARWELL / The Dallas Morning News
In an age when smoking has been outlawed in most public places – government buildings, bars and pool halls – a person’s home is one of the few places you can puff in peace.
Until now.
A Dallas woman has filed a lawsuit seeking six figures from a former neighbor and landlord for damage she says was caused by cigarette smoke wafting through adjoining walls of her high-end townhome.
Add comment September 30, 2009
The Reluctant Landlords
With housing prices still in the dumps, many Americans are finding themselves in the uncomfortable position of landlord.
Some have been forced to relocate for a job and can’t sell their houses. Others have moved, but are holding on to their previous homes, hoping for prices to rebound before selling. Many are finding that rent checks don’t come close to covering their mortgage payments.
Hard data are scant on how many homeowners are renting out their homes, but anecdotal evidence suggests numbers are up. In one indication of the trend: More homeowners are converting their homeowners insurance to landlord policies that cover the additional risks of leasing out a home. Allstate Corp., the second largest home insurer in the U.S., reported a 27% increase in conversions in the first quarter from the previous year.
Add comment September 3, 2009
Travis County Announces New Rental Assistance Program
The Travis County Housing Finance Corporation (“TCHFC”) and the Travis County Health and Human Services and Veterans Services Department (“HHSVS”) have partnered to secure $300,000 from the Texas Department of Housing and Community Affairs to offer rental assistance and self sufficiency counseling to Travis County families with household incomes below 60% of the median family Income, through the Tenant Based Rental Assistance (“TBRA”) program.
High demand for local rental assistance needs is well documented by long waiting lists at the two Housing Authorities located in Travis County and the TBRA program allows Travis County to continue to address the need for more affordable housing. “Tenant-Based Rental Assistance is another tool that Travis County will use to help families not only obtain safe and decent affordable rental housing,” said County Judge Samuel T. Biscoe, “but it will also place low income families on a pathway to achieving self-sufficient, permanent housing in a healthy community.”
Add comment September 3, 2009
New Texas Laws Take Effect September 1
Several new Texas laws affecting tenants’ rights take effect today. For details about the new laws or other tenant-landlord issues, call the ATC telephone counseling line at 512-474-1961.
HB 1109
HB 1109 clarifies the existing late fee statute. A landlord may charge a late fee if 1. notice is included in a written lease; 2. the fee is reasonable; and 3. the rent has remained unpaid one full day after the date the rent was originally due (meaning, if the lease states that rent is due on the first, the landlord could not charge a late fee until the third). Effective: Sept. 1, 2009.
HB 1819
The City of Houston must establish a multifamily rental housing inspection program and establish minimum habitability standards. The city is prohibited from ordering the closure of a substandard property unless it makes a good faith effort to locate
housing with comparable rental rates in the same school district for residents displaced by the closure. Effective: Sept. 1, 2009.
HB 2824/SB 408
HB 2824 did not pass, but the provision for the appointment of a pro bono lawyer in eviction appeals passed as an amendment to SB 408. To have an attorney appointed, a tenant must have successfully filed a pauper’s affidavit with the court. Effective: Sept. 1, 2009.
SB 1717
Owners of low-income housing tax credit properties may not lock out or threaten to lock out a tenant for nonpayment of rent. Owners of tax credit properties may not seize a tenant’s property except by judicial process unless the tenant has abandoned the premises. The prohibitions on lockouts and landlord’s liens must be included in the lease contract. Most states prohibit these self-help remedies for landlords in all properties. Effective: Sept. 1, 2009.
SB 2126
SB 2126 was a setback for tenant’s rights. Apartment owners may add a 9-percent service charge to submetered water bills unless the tenant lives in a low-income housing tax credit property or receives housing voucher assistance. Effective: Sept. 1, 2009.
11 comments September 1, 2009
Austin Energy offers new utility aid
Worried that the heat wave and economic downturn are hitting some Austinites with utility bills they’ll have trouble paying, city officials announced a new assistance program Monday.
Austin Energy customers who are behind on their bills will have six months to pay them back — and up to 10 months if they can demonstrate extreme financial hardship — as long as they pay 25 percent of the unpaid bills up front. The window was extended from four months.
Add comment August 25, 2009
Are police liable for giving killer access to ex’s apartment?
Staci Bovill Evans’ haunting cries for help during a 911 call in 2004 filled U.S. District Judge Lee Yeakel’s cavernous courtroom in Austin on Tuesday. Seated in the witness stand, Evans sobbed anew as she listened to an audio replay of her reaction the day her ex-fiancé waited in her apartment for her to return home, fatally shot her boyfriend and then killed himself.
“My ex-boyfriend just shot my boyfriend,” Evans said on the recording. “I don’t know how he got in.”
Shawn Barnard, Evans’ ex-boyfriend, got into her Northeast Austin apartment when an Austin police officer kicked in the door. Barnard had told police that he feared Evans had killed herself, according to testimony.
A federal jury will decide at the end of the civil trial whether the city and two officers — one of whom is now retired — bear any blame for the shooting because the officers allowed Barnard to go inside and then left him at the unlocked apartment. The trial is expected to be finished next week.
Add comment August 5, 2009
Selling Cable Through Illegal Channels
SAN MARCOS, Texas (KXAN) – San Marcos police are looking for a man they believe is tapping into Grande Communications lines and selling apartment residents stolen cable.
Jesse Martinez did not understand why Grande Communications had a salesman and installer driving the neighborhood and advertising so aggressively.
“He was really pushy,” said Martinez. “He just kept asking and asking.”
Martinez lives on Smith Street near the River Street intersection in San Marcos. He did not realize the man did not really work for Grande until his internet connection started slowing down. Martinez went out to the back of his apartment complex and saw six wires connected to his cable box.
Add comment July 27, 2009
Number of burglaries spike in northwest Austin
News 8 Austin reports:
A spike in burglaries throughout Austin has prompted the Austin Police Department to urge the public to keep their doors and windows locked and stay alert.
Since January, APD said it has seen an 80 percent increase in burglaries in northwest part of town, including Jollyville, Duval and Parmer.
APD reports 208 residential burglaries in the area, 116 of which took place at apartments.
Police said if it happens to you, there is one way to improve the odds of getting your stuff back.
“Engrave your property with your driver’s license number on the back, in case the items are retrieved, then you can identify the property and give it back to you,” Ofc. Tanya Normand said.
Citywide numbers were not available as of press time Wednesday.
APD said the spike could be attributed to the struggling economy, but said crime tends to spike during the summer months.
Add comment July 16, 2009
Home Scam? Craigslist Ad Fooled Renters
The “For Sale” sign is out at Aria Kilpatrick’s historic Hyde Park home, but she was confused when renters started calling her.
“My phone just kept ringing off the hook,” she said.
The callers said they had seen an ad on Craigslist advertising Kilpatrick’s house for rent — an ad she said she never placed.
“Well, I was really confuased at first,” said Kilpatrick. “I didn’t post an ad on Craigslist, and it’s not for rent.”
The ad said a thousand dollars a month for rent. A thousand dollars? That’s what some people in this neighborhood pay in just taxes alone.
Add comment July 16, 2009
