Orange City, Iowa — A group of Orange City tenants and landlords has filed suit against the City of Orange City with the help of an organization that bills itself as a “national law firm for liberty.”
According to the Institute for Justice, the City of Orange City passed a rental registration and inspection ordinance in February 2021. And some people are claiming that it amounts to an invasion of privacy.
The Institute for Justice says Orange City’s rental inspection law forces landlords and tenants to open their properties and homes to submit to intrusive inspections. They say the ordinance allows the government to enter the most intimate confines of tenants’ homes— including bedrooms, bathrooms, kitchens, and closets — in search of housing code violations, even when landlords and tenants object.
According to a statement from the Institute for Justice:
“Some tenants do not want the government entering into these deeply personal spaces where information about their private lives may be visible. Ordinarily, when a person does not want the government to enter their home, they can request a warrant supported by some evidence that a violation of the law has occurred. But in Orange City, if a landlord and tenant request a warrant, the government can go to court and readily obtain an “administrative” warrant—a warrant that does not require any evidence that anything is wrong with the home. This program makes it easier for the government to get into the homes of ordinary, law-abiding citizens than the homes of suspected criminals.”
They say that Orange City’s rental inspection program is not unique. Rental inspection programs have become increasingly common in Iowa and across the country. They allege, “These programs give the government the green light to conduct blanket searches of innocent people’s homes without their consent and are an end-run around constitutional protections for property rights.”
The firm alleges that inspectors can also report suspected criminal activity to the police, meaning rental inspections can lead to arrest.
They say the Fourth Amendment and the Iowa Constitution guarantee strong property rights and the right to privacy in the home, meaning that the government needs voluntary consent or probable cause to enter your home. The firm alleges that Orange City’s inspection scheme defies these constitutional principles, and they say that’s why the Institute for Justice has teamed up with Orange City tenants, Amanda Wink, Bryan Singer, and Erika Nordyke, and their landlords, Bev Van Dam and Josh Dykstra, to, “file a lawsuit challenging the government’s use of administrative warrants to search the homes of ordinary people who do not want inspectors inside.”
