Iowa Inspections hired to enforce Newton’s rental inspection program

Despite some pushback from landlords in the area who felt inspection practices are overpriced and burdensome when the outside consultant is based outside of Jasper County, the Newton City Council on Dec. 16 agreed to a five-year contract with Iowa Inspections, LLC, who served as the city’s previous rental inspector.

Four inspection firms responded to the city’s request for quote (RFQ), including its past inspector. Iowa Inspections will be charging $90 for the first unit and $25 for each additional unit in the same building for the first three years; it will increase to $100 per unit and $25 per additional unit the final two years.

Re-inspection fees are the same as the initial inspection fees. No-shows will be charged $100. Iowa Inspections is up-to-date on its certifications and is a certified building official, housing code official, residential building inspector, property maintenance and housing inspector and residential utilities inspector.

The company also inspects many rental properties in Central Iowa, including Albia, Ankeny, Centerville, Chariton, Creston, DeSoto, Knoxville, Oskaloosa, Van Meter and Windsor Heights. Iowa Inspections is also a building official and inspector for Des Moines engineering consultant Veenstra & Kimm Inc.

Fred Rhodes, a local landlord, spoke against the City of Newton’s rental inspection program and the council’s consideration to renew its contract with Iowa Inspections. Rhodes decried the “exorbitant” increase in fees and he argued it should take 10 minutes or less to complete an inspection.

“Any time we raise costs on rental properties, these costs will be passed to the tenant,” Rhodes said. “A government official recently told a property owner when costs are raised that the owner should absorb these costs. That is total ignorance on their part. That is not the way business works.”

Investors must make money on the investment, Rhodes added, otherwise they will not make an investment. Rhodes urged the city to look for a more cost-effective way to do these inspections in a way that will benefit the community and not neighboring communities in the metro areas.

“We’re spending all of this money out of town when it could easily benefit the residents of our town. A good method would be to have a list of contractors approved by the city that landlords could call to perform an inspection,” Rhodes said, noting he owns property in Kansas City which provides him a similar list.

Rhodes said the Kansas City inspectors charge $50 per inspection and are happy to get the work. He said the inspection itself takes the same amount of time as it does in Newton and the contractors “are just as thorough.” Rhodes said when it is all done the money stays in the community and boosts its economy.

He also argued against what the city is interpreting in the state code. Cities of populations the size of Newton are required to have a rental inspection program. But Rhodes argued the city is not required to have a certified inspector to conduct the inspections.

Carl Smith, of Kellogg, echoed Rhodes’ statements, especially when it came to hiring an outside consultant that he believed could easily be hired locally. Erin Chambers, director of community development, addressed this point, saying any local consultant who was interested would have needed to check with the city.

“This was posted to the city’s website,” she said. “If any party interested in any sort of city work, if they signed up for notifications, their email or the cellphone would have been pinged. Or you can just monitor the city website. We did a search for any area firms and we sent out hard copy papers.”

Of the four firms that responded to the RFQ, all were from outside of the city. They include: Safe Building, Bluffs Inspections Service and Willdan Engineering. Chambers also addressed the certification issues from Rhodes. She said the city wants people who are certified in enforcing the codes the council has adopted.

Council member Mark Hallam was intrigued by the idea Rhodes proposed, but he felt it would be too late as the city was already “under the gun” since the current contract with Iowa Inspections would be expiring on Dec. 31. Iowa Inspections was hired to do inspections for the city in late 2019 and then in 2021.

According to city staff, 85 percent of rental property owners pass inspections the first time. Which is to say most landlords in Newton pass their inspections.