INDEPENDENCE, Mo. — Independence wants renters to move into a property with confidence.
That’s why the city council created Rental Ready regulations for landlords, a first for the Kansas City area, which went into effect in June 2017 and were updated in January 2025.
“It's a needed, unneeded program,” Steve LeVota said. “We shouldn't have gotten to this spot in our city, but it has really helped these past couple years.”
LeVota is one of seven approved rental-property inspectors — and he’s seen some horror stories.
One particularly vivid issue involved a renter in the Englewood neighborhood, where a basement flooded with raw sewage with every toilet flush.
“I went down to the basement and there is sewage just coming up,” LeVota recalled. “I asked the young lady who lived there — her husband's an over-road truck driver, so he's not there — I say, ‘What is this?’ She goes, ‘Well, whenever I flush the toilet, it comes up.’ It's right by her washing machine and where her baby plays and stuff, so we called the landlord.”
The woman had reported the issue several times before only to endure “bullying the tenant to shut up about it,” LeVota said.
“She showed me letters and pictures that she sent him every month — this is happening; this happened,” he said. “Then, she showed me a letter he sent her that said, If she turns him in, he's going to take her kid, he's going to break her credit, he's going to do all kinds, like evict her and do all kinds of stuff.”
The issue wound up being some relatively minor root intrusion in the sewer line, which was addressed and corrected quickly with intervention from the program.
“But there's all kinds of stories like that,” LeVota said.
LeVota’s checklist for rental inspections includes ensuring that house numbers are visible for emergency-response purposes, that all electrical outlets are covered, that appliances are properly installed, that the plumbing and HVAC systems work, and that windows above a certain height have stoppers, among other things.
“Our goal is health, safety and welfare,” Independence Assistant City Manager Charlie Dissell said. “Every time we do something like this, we want to make sure that the people that are living in these units are living in a safe condition.”
It’s not about punishing landlords; it’s to give renters peace of mind.
“We’re not here to pick on people,” LeVota said. “We’re stewards of the city and we’re supposed to be helping people. ... I carry faceplates, batteries, smoke detectors, carbon monoxide (detectors). I carry everything, so if something’s wrong, I can fix it right there and then they don’t fail, but it’s all for the tenants.”
Inspections are required every two years and cost $100 under the changes made seven months ago after updates to the city’s building code.
“I think 100% it's meeting the goals that we had for it,” Dissell said. “... Usually from the landlords, it's mostly positive feedback. You're going to have some that don't like the regulations, but, for the most part, it's really easy to get in there. It's really easy to apply for a license. Getting the inspection is very easy. We've done what we can to actually beef up the technology with these new regulations as well, so the ability to file complaints is a lot easier. The ability to schedule the inspections and find an inspector is a lot easier than it was previously, too. Overall, that's been good.”
LeVota has seen the impact the program has made in the last eight years.
“I think it's helped tremendously,” LeVota said. “... The ultimate goal is to bring more families to Independence that want to live here. Our schools are great, our police are great, everything is. It's a great town, but the rental properties were so dilapidated and blighted that now we want them to be built up so people can come here again.”
LeVota hopes the city will continue to take "baby steps" to improve the program even more and noted that several surrounding cities — including Buckner, Belton, Grandview and Raytown — have crafted policies that mirror Independence's Rental Ready.
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