Property Rights and Rental Inspections | The Institute for Justice

Property Rights and Rental Inspections | The Institute for Justice
Under the Constitution, before police can get a warrant to search someone’s home, they need probable cause of unlawful activity. But due to the U.S. Supreme Court’s abdication of its duty to enforce this command, cities like Red Wing, Minn., have passed rental inspection ordinances that allow government officials to barge in on someone’s home without probable cause of a crime or code violation. Thanks to this rental inspection loophole, criminals actually have more constitutional rights than law-abiding renters.
In order to rent out property in Red Wing, the property needs to be licensed. But a license requires an on-site inspection. If the proprietor or tenant refuses, the city can obtain an “administrative warrant” from a judge. So the notion that these inspections can be considered “consensual” is an illusion.
Represented by the Institute for Justice, nine landlords and two tenants have been fighting the city of Red Wing ever since the rental inspection ordinance passed in 2006. In August 2012, the Minnesota Supreme Court decided to hear the case.
Mandatory rental inspections violate the Fourth Amendment. A short intrusion can reveal very personal information about one’s religion, political beliefs, emotional or mental state, hobbies, sexual orientation, and/or gender identity. Needless to say, people shouldn’t lose their privacy rights just because they’re renting a property. To make matters worse, in Red Wing, rental inspection reports are “public data.”