TUPELO, Miss. - With more than 6,000 units available for rent within the Tupelo city limits inspecting each and every one of them can take some time. Nearly three years to be exact.

"It's taken some time, obviously, to inspect all of these properties," Tupelo's Director of Planning and Community Development, Pat Falkner explains. "There's more than six hundred different owners of residential rental property in the city, we've had to deal with them one at a time on their properties."

Since the Rental License Ordinance was adopted in 2007 all but one of the properties inspected have been approved. But officials say there still are a small number of property owners who have not completed the process and time is running out.

"If it's not been inspected, they need to get on the schedule and have that set up to have those units inspected," Falkner says. "If they've had an inspection and didn't pass then they've got to go to work and correct whatever deficiencies that were identified when they did have the inspection."

While the process of receiving a rental license may seem like a hassle, city officials say the ordinance was adopted with good intentions for property owners.

"In the long runs, this is a good program for the owners of the rental property. It's quality control for them," Falkner says. "If they're all having to be kept up to those standards we're only asking them to invest in the value of their own properties."

Property owners aren't the only beneficiaries.

Officials add the ordinance has everyone's best interests at heart.

"Even if your property is kept up, if your neighbors is not then you lose value.  So we want to protect that. The homeowners who live in the neighborhoods, this is very much a priority for them. They want to see this done and we're trying to support that," Falkner says. "People who live in the units have a right to have safety and healthy, clean, sanitary living condition (s). We feel like this is a minimum obligation."