UPDATES & ANALYSIS

City’s requirement that renters admit city inspectors is not unconstitutional, Iowa Supreme Court holds

by Rox Laird | December 28, 2024

A northwestern Iowa city’s ordinance that requires landlords and tenants to allow city officials into apartments to inspect for building code violations is not unconstitutional, at least on its face, because the ordinance may be applied in ways that would not offend the Iowa Constitution, the Iowa Supreme Court said in a decision handed down Dec. 20.

Orange City’s building code requires city inspections of rental housing every five years. If a landlord or tenant refuses an inspector entry, the ordinance provides that the inspector may legally secure entry by, among other things, obtaining an administrative warrant to conduct a search. Unlike a criminal warrant, which involves a search for evidence of a crime, an administrative warrant is used to inspect property for compliance with health and safety regulations.

Four apartment renters and two landlords argued in a suit filed in Sioux County District Court that the right-of-entry provision of Orange City’s rental inspection ordinance violates their rights against unreasonable search and seizure under the Iowa Constitution. They asserted that, just as in the case of a criminal-investigation warrant, probable cause of a housing code violation must be shown to support an administrative warrant.

The district court agreed, granted summary judgment to the plaintiffs, and declared Orange City’s ordinance’s mandatory-inspection requirement unconstitutional.

The Iowa Supreme Court in a unanimous decision written by Justice David May reversed the district court.

Justice May cited a 1967 U.S. Supreme Court decision, which said the probable-cause showing required under the Fourth Amendment is satisfied in the context of rental inspections, where administrative warrants “will not necessarily depend upon specific knowledge of the condition of the particular dwelling.” The Iowa Supreme Court in 2007 held that the U.S. Supreme Court’s standard under the U.S. Constitution applies to the Iowa Constitution’s version of the Fourth Amendment as well.

In any case, the Court said Orange City’s rental inspection ordinance is not unconstitutional on its face, as the plaintiffs-appellees argued – which would mean the ordinance is incapable of any valid application – because there are ways Orange City’s ordinance may be applied without violating the Iowa Constitution. A city inspector could, for example, enter a rental unit where entry is refused by using a non-warrant process under the ordinance; the city could enter if it has probable cause to believe there is a code violation; and, the ordinance makes an exception for inspections done not by a government official but by a third-party private inspector.

“These examples demonstrate that the ordinance’s mandatory inspection regime can operate without violating” the Iowa Constitution, Justice May wrote. “Therefore, the citizens’ facial challenge cannot succeed.”

Tags: Iowa Supreme Court 2024-25