At the October 11 Leon County Commission meeting, Leon County Commissioners reviewed local landlord-tenant rental and leasing ordinances.

These ordinances require landlords to give a rent increase notification to some residential tenants and allow them to have an out of their residential leases if the new rent amount increases by a specified threshold amount. 

This agenda item was requested at the Commissioners’ June 14, 2022 meeting due to a number of local governments having adopted new landlord-tenant laws.

Other Florida local governments, such as The City of Tampa, Broward County, the City of Hialeah, Collier County, Palm Beach County, the City of Lake Worth Beach and the City of Miami Beach, among others, have enacted ordinances that require written notice to tenants if a landlord decides to increase their rent. 

As of October 11, Leon County Commissioners decided not to move forward with enacting any rent control measures.

Commissioners, did, however, say that they wanted to give more tenants additional notice prior to their rent increasing.

These ordinances include notifications to tenants as they relate to the following:

• Written notice of rent increase

• Rent timeframe terms

• Any exemptions to law

• Acceptances or declination of lease continuation based on rental increase

• Any penalties

• Code enforcement

• Scope of ordinance applicability 

Commissioner Carolyn Cummings said that “Leon County is unique,” and the ordinance needs to address the needs of parties involved due to the many different types of tenant and landlord demographics, as well as different costs associated with housing.

Cummings added, “We’ve got to balance landlords. We’ve got to balance tenants and we’ve got to also balance notice.” 

Per Commissioner Rick Minor, Leon County rent prices have increased 15% in the past year due to the trend following months of COVID-19-related eviction moratoriums.

For Minor, early notice of rent increasing is “necessary.”

He also noted that, “This is not a silver bullet for rent increases. All this would do is give renters more advanced notice when the increase might be coming.”