The New Brunswick chapter of ACORN is calling on municipalities to implement a landlord registration system.

Officials say it would allow communities to deal with landlords who do not keep their buildings up to legal standards.

Under the system, a nominal per-unit fee of $1 per month charged to landlords would be dedicated to municipalities to hire more bylaw officers.

The idea is it would allow for more regular proactive inspections of buildings to check for compliance.

ACORN says the current complaint-based minimum property standards system simply does not work.

“Our survey shows that only a small number of tenants know about the existing provincial minimum property standards and the municipal complaint-based bylaws that enforce the standards,” the organization said in a new report released this week.

“Proactive enforcement ensures that Inspections happen on a regular basis instead of being triggered by complaints. Inspectors also perform basic outreach to tenants, asking if problems exist inside their units, and if there are, can inspect inside units.”

ACORN said similar to how all restaurants are proactively inspected to ensure public safety, it should be no different for rental housing.