By: Cloud Miller, ORHA Technology Chair
Date: 09/07/2022

For years, the ORHA Forms Committee has numbered our forms sequentially and just kept adding new numbers to new forms, regardless of what the form was used for. This year marks a big change for us; we are implementing a system that will group the forms in a logical order that we hope will help our members keep track of what forms serve which purpose during the tenancy. 

The new form numbers will always start with a letter indicating group they belong to:
Screening Forms = S
Move-in Forms = M
Operational Forms = O
Violation Forms = V
Termination Forms = T

There are, however, some forms that belong to more than one group, for example, the Reasonable Accommodation and Verification Form. Because it can be used both at move-in and operationally during the tenancy, it is numbered MO1 (Move-in / Operational #1).

For forms that overlap categories, we have combined letters to indicate that:
MO – for Move-in and Operational
MT - for Move-in and Termination
VT – for Violation and Termination

Portland-specific forms are designated with a PD suffix as well as the group code and number. For example, Portland has its own screening forms so the form Application Screening Guidelines – Landlord Choice, is labeled S6PD (Screening, #6, Portland-specific). Also, for Portland Landlords the Forms Store has a button you can click to show only the Portland forms and other state forms that are okay to use in the City of Portland. 

In addition, the ORHA Forms Store (https://store.oregonrentalhousing.com) will automatically direct you to the Portland-specific version of a form as needed by detecting the City entered as “Portland” for the Property Address portion of the web-form. For Portland-specific forms, if another city is entered and you will be re-directed back to the appropriate form.

As cities pile on law overlays, it becomes much more difficult to keep our members up to date, so if other cities come up with their own distinct rules, we will use a two-letter code to identify the special form for use in that city.

By grouping forms that belong together in the Forms Manual and in the Forms Store, we continue our mission to help our members across the state build financial stability and generational wealth through rental property ownership. Our next Forms Store project will allow our users to fill out one form and then have any other selected forms auto populated with the same information.

There are great things ahead – thank you for your support!

Cloud Miller, ORHA Technology Chair