Property Owner talks rental registration requirements

HSV Property Owner talks about rental registration requirements / Paul Childress introduced himself as an Arkansas State Representative candidate

During the Property Owner Comment period at the February 21 HSVPOA Board Meeting, Bill Carter, a Hot Springs Village Property Owner of numerous rental properties, discussed the newly enacted Rental Registration Program. The new requirement for rental registration was previously reported in the HSV Gazette; you can click here to read the article. In addition, Paul Childress, Arkansas State Representative candidate, introduced himself.

Bill Carter on HSV rental registration requirements

Carter said he is certain that the board and staff spent much time working on this policy. “When I first heard about this two or three weeks ago, I became very interested in it and checked in with Ginger George…” for clarification on the new policy. Between my family and me, we have fourteen properties in the Village, so we have a lot at stake, and we are very interested in how this all takes place,” stated Carter.”

Carter said that George explained that the reason this policy was enacted is because sometimes situations arise and it is difficult or impossible for Community Support [formerly Compliance] to contact the rental owners to resolve the issue.

“It is my understanding that the POA probably has almost everybody’s contact information now. Am I correct in saying that? When we sign up for the POA, we give them the contact information. So my guess is that the POA Board or POA Compliance has access to almost everybody’s contact information, anyway. But I guess there are situations where they don’t, and I understand that, and it is important that those issues get taken care of,” expressed the rental owner.

Carter continued, “My proposal on that is to do something much simpler than what you are talking about doing. What you are talking about doing is requiring a registration of all rental Property Owners, requiring those Property Owners to place something in their [rental] property as far as Rules and Regulations, which I don’t think is a bad idea. We do that anyway. But also, charging them a fee.”

“Raising twenty or thirty thousand dollars, in essence, to put together a list of contacts through the registration, which would take two days to input into an Excel spreadsheet and given over to Compliance so that they have a list. That is supposing that everybody follows the rules and registers. I don’t believe that will be the case. I don’t believe everybody will pay the fee. The reason I say that is because I’ve already been told by other Property Owners that they are not going to pay a fee. They don’t believe it is legal,” stated Carter.

“And that brings up the question, I looked at this, I looked at the governing documents of the Village, and so did other people, and they can’t find anywhere where the Board of Directors is given the authority to require people to register for anything or to pay a $50 fee,” said Carter.

Carter asked, “In essence, how can the Board of Directors assess or levy a $50 fee on a subset of Property Owners in the Village? How can that possibly be? We are talking about a $50 fee, which isn’t much…

At this point, the three-minute timer went off. All Property Owner comments are limited to three minutes.

“…but the concern is the future. There’s no concern with this Board…go ahead,”continued Carter.

Board Member Larry Siener said, “You are timing out, sir. You get three minutes. That is what that ugly sound is.”

Carter said he was not aware of the three-minute speaking limit and asked the Board if they had any questions for him.

Carter expressed, “My question real quick is if you can assess $50, can you also assess $75, and can you assess $200? Do you have the right to do that or the authority to do that? I am assuming that you think that you do. And if you can do that, how about a future Board that is very anti-rental and wants to assess $5,000 because they want to get rid of rentals? That would probably do the trick.”

Carter said his proposal is, “Instead of doing all this, why not form a small committee of two or three people to help with compliance? I was a broker in California for 40 years, and if we wanted to find out the owner of a property, it wasn’t that difficult to do, through tax records and so forth and make the contact.”

“When that situation, which I can’t believe takes place very often, comes up, then that committee can look up and find the information on who that owner is, how to contact him and do so. Anyway, that is my proposal. I appreciate your time.”

Paul Childress, State Representative candidate, introduced himself at the Board Meeting

Childress said he is running to be the next state rep on the Saline County side. He said he has been trying to learn the Village for the past eight months. “There is a lot, and this has been a very informative meeting, and I just wanted to come and introduce myself. Lanny Fite is the current seat holder and a friend of mine. He is retiring. I heard Mr. Hale’s report, and I want to be that person to come fight with you all and work with you all on the state level to help the Village get some things back in return.”[This is about tax dollars.]

Featured image: Bill Carter, Hot Springs Village Property Owner,
discussed rental registration requirements.

By Cheryl Dowden

Click here to contact the HSV Gazette.

Click here to visit the Explore the Village website.

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