KISSIMMEE, Fla. - Commissioners in Osceola County are considering whether to make a tenant bill of rights and a flooding disclosure a requirement for residential sellers and landlords.

What You Need To Know

  • Osceola County commissioners considering whether to make tenant bill of rights, flooding disclosure requirement

  • Residential sellers, landlords who fail to disclose flooding may be fined up to $5k per violation 

  • Violation of any part of measure can result in $500 fine

  • Meeting will be held 1:30 p.m. Monday

Commissioners will decide Monday whether to make staff and the county attorney draft an ordinance on those measures, allowing for a fine of up to $5,000 per violation of the flooding disclosure requirement, as well as $500 for violating the overall ordinance.

This proposed flood disclosure comes after Hurricane Ian devastated homes across the area: most notably, the homes in Good Samaritan Village.

The bill has yet to be drafted, but county documents so far don't indicate how a flood would be defined.

"If they’re going to state that you need to disclose flooding, what does that mean? Does that mean that they had a room that ponded with water?" said Torey Eisenman, a real estate agent.

She said while Hurricane Ian was devastating, not every flood is this severe, or from Mother Nature.

"If I had a refrigerator line break and my kitchen had water that was a quarter of an inch high, is that considered flooding?" Eisenman said.

Proponents of the bill hope a flood disclosure would help keep renters informed, but some argue that concerned renters can reach out to an insurance agent for answers.

"Insurance companies track all of this stuff," said Eisenman. "So unless it wasn’t reported to an insurance company, then somebody can call to get insurance and they’re going to tell them whether or not the home flooded."

Samuel and Joyce Hunt, who moved to an apartment in Orlando after their unit at the senior living community Good Samaritan Society–Kissimmee Village flooded, wish an ordinance like that had been around before. 

“We wouldn’t have come here, we would not have,” said Samuel. “I certainly know other people that would not have moved there,” Joyce added.

Jeffrey Hussey, director of litigation for Community Legal Services, which has been providing pro-bono legal advice to seniors displaced from Good Samaritan Society, feels a flooding disclosure requirement may have encouraged those seniors to seek flooding insurance or other options. 

“If this ordinance would’ve been in effect, they would’ve been given other options to better protect themselves,” Hussey said.

Hussey called the proposed fine “significant,” but hopes the final ordinance gives tenants more recourse in addition to punishing violators.

“It doesn’t give anything to the poor tenant if the home gets flooded,” he said. “They didn’t have the opportunity to buy the flood insurance and they lose everything. Our concern is, is there going to be a cause of action that the tenant can raise to get reimbursed the money that they may have lost.”

The county commission meeting will be held at 1:30 p.m. Monday.