An Act Requiring The Collection Of Identifying Information Of Nonresident Owners Of Residential Property.
Summary
HB 5161 would expand Connecticut’s landlord-registration rules for rental property owned by nonresidents. It allows any municipality, and requires municipalities with populations of 25,000 or more, to require nonresident owners of occupied or vacant rental property—and certain project-based housing providers—to report a current residential address to the municipality’s tax assessor or other designated officer. For entity owners such as corporations, partnerships, trusts, or similar entities, the bill also requires the address of the agent in charge and the identifying information and residential address of each controlling participant associated with the property.
The bill also requires updated address information to be filed within 21 days after a change, deems the tax-billing address on file to be the owner’s current address if no report is filed, and makes service of maintenance or code-compliance orders to the address on file sufficient proof of notice in later enforcement actions. Violations are converted from an infraction to a violation and are subject to a civil fine of $250 to $1,000. Reports submitted under the law are confidential and not subject to disclosure under the state’s public records law. The bill also amends the landlord duties statute to make compliance with the new reporting requirements part of a landlord’s statutory obligations.
Impact
The bill would amend Connecticut General Statutes sections 47a-6a and 47a-7, creating a new municipal reporting framework for nonresident owners of residential rental property and tying that reporting obligation directly to landlord duties. It would affect landlords, property management entities, project-based housing providers, and municipal tax assessors or other designated local officials, while also creating a new confidentiality rule for the information collected. The law would take effect October 1, 2026.
Sentiment
The available voting history suggests the bill has generally favorable committee support, though not unanimous. It received a 12-6 Joint Favorable Substitute vote in the Housing Committee and a 19-2 Joint Favorable vote in the Planning and Development Committee, indicating broad support for the bill’s goals of improving municipal contact information and enforcement for rental property oversight. No transcript excerpts were provided, so the discussion-based sentiment cannot be assessed beyond the recorded votes.
Contention
The main points of contention appear to be the scope of the reporting mandate and the privacy implications of collecting identifying information from nonresident owners and controlling participants. The bill distinguishes between municipalities by population, making the requirement mandatory only in towns of 25,000 or more, which may reflect concern about administrative burden in smaller municipalities. Another likely issue is whether requiring personal identifying information from entity owners and making tax-billing addresses legally sufficient for service strikes the right balance between enforcement efficiency and owner privacy.