Whose job is it to clear the snow at a rental property? The tenant or the landlord?
A woman in London makes a case for a by-law requiring landlords to clear the snow from tenants’ walkways and driveways.
The OLA’s Jane Schweitzer called the idea of ignoring what is put in the lease ‘ridiculous.’
http://www.cbc.ca/ontariotoday/2011/02/01/whose-job-is-it-to-clear-the-snow/
Nancy Lowe can only describe her house as a pigsty.
Walking into her rental property on Campbell Avenue the day after her tenants left, Lowe discovered damage to every room in the house.
“There’s stains everywhere, there’s holes in all the walls, it looks like they had anger management issues and punched holes in the walls and doors,” she said, shaking her head as she surveyed the damage.
Lowe bought the house in the Barrie’s central neighbourhood in June 2009 as a rental property.
She was impressed with the brand-new carpets, new hardwood floors and fresh paint job.
To keep her heating costs down, she put on a new steel tile roof and began interviewing prospective tenants.
After meeting the parents of one young man and calling the young woman’s boss, she felt she’d done due diligence and let the three friends move in.
While monthly payments weren’t the issue, a few incidents she now considers red flags cross her mind as she remembers the year.
Once, her husband dropped by the house after a large snowfall and had to tell the tenants not to snowboard off the roof of the old garage.
Another time, Mitch Martin, the upstairs tenant, called her about the destructive noises coming from below.
“It sounded like they had a couple of brawls,” said Martin, 29, who lived in the apartment above the tenants for the full year.
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There was confusion over the thermostat levels and blown fuses a few times that weren’t a big deal, he said.
However, loud music caused enough of a disturbance, the next door neighbour called the police on several occasions, he said.
“You don’t put your nose into other people’s business,” said Martin.
But when he heard a loud crash as if something was smashed against the basement door — he shares the stairwell and the sounds travels — he felt compelled to call the landlord.
The hole in the basement door suggests he might be right.
Lowe’s complaints — while some are simple wear and tear from a bit more than gentle use of the floors and carpets — stem from the three broken windows, a toilet that was rarely if ever cleaned, and huge gouges out of the enamel on the bathroom tub.
Fortunately, she said, she has before and after photos that show the extremely clean condition before the tenants moved in.
A walk through the central Barrie house now shows ripped tiles, a six-inch ragged hole made through a kitchen cupboard into a bedroom for an extension cord, and broken kitchen patio doors; Lowe can put her fingers through the broken frame.
Lowe complained to Barrie police regarding the destruction of her property, but there’s little they can do.
Const. Toni Dufour said there’s not enough evidence to lay a charge.
“We did contact one of the tenants, who said the damage was done by an unknown person — there’s been several parties since he moved in — but unless there’s a witness, we can’t lay charges,” said Dufour.
Her advice to the landlord is follow up in a civil court of law.
However, Landlord Legal owner April Stewart said she’s literally got binders full of judgments she hasn’t been able to collect on.
“You can’t get blood from a stone,” said Stewart.
The local paralegal said the services she’s created to assist landlords collect from destructive or non-paying tenants has kept her running off her feet trying to collect outstanding money owed to landlords.
“I want to stress, this isn’t necessarily a problem with 20- year-olds. I’ve seen just as many adults, right up to 60, who are irresponsible. And they’re enabled by this legislation.”
The biggest problem is the current landlord tenant act favours the tenant, she said.
Police can’t always prove mischief, or the tenant may even have a previous eviction notice, but the sheriff can’t legally tell a prospective landlord about it.
“There’s no freedom of information about this. There’s nothing in the system to protect the landlord,” she said.
In the future, Stewart said, when a landlord is approached by younger renters, ask the parents to act as guarantors for their children. Perform a credit check; it will show if a tenant has bounced cheques. And, ask to see photo identification; some renters will use a family member’s ID if they know a sibling has a better credit history.
“Visit in the first 30 days to see how they live,” said Stewart.
Landlords are required to give 24-hour written notice, but regular drop-ins are worth it.
Last month, a new tenant moved into the house on Campbell Avenue
He’s put up posters to cover the worst of the damage, steam-cleaned the carpets and carried the majority of the last owners refuse out to the garage — or just thrown it out for the trash.
He said he’s rented quite a few apartments, but “never saw anything as bad as this.
“I’m a patient man, I don’t mind waiting for her to fix this,” said the new tenant, who requested that his name not be used. “It’s not her fault, but it’s her responsibility to fix it.”
http://www.thebarrieexaminer.com/ArticleDisplay.aspx?e=2923227&#postbox
To anyone interested in the services of Landlord legal –
I could have never imagined how hard it is to evict someone until I was faced with having to do it myself. It wasn’t until I started the process that I realized that it is impossible to do on your own without proper legal counsel. There are so many “t’s” and “i’s” that need to be crossed and dotted and if you miss one, you could lose a lot of time and money. That is when I contacted Landlord Legal.
The best part about April Stewart and her team at Landlord Legal is that they’re specialists. Evicting “bad” tenants for “good” landlords is all they do! I could have NEVER evicted my bad tenant on my own. He was a professional con who played the legal system with expertise. But what my bad tenant didn’t know was that April is more diligent and a lot smarter than he was. April’s a hard working, super persistent woman who is at the top of what she does and gets the job done, period.
I hope I never have to use April’s services again but should I ever need to, you better believe that the only person I will call before anyone else is “The Terminator!”
– Nick S, Toronto
By Hugh Adami, Ottawa Citizen December 19, 2010
Why would anyone want to be a small landlord when there is little protection in Ontario from bad tenants?
Take Mike and Cathy Clarmo, who live in the Osgoode community of Edwards. The only way they could get a tenant to leave their rental property was with a cash payout of $3,000. And that was after 4½ years of watching the house’s resale value plummet because of their tenants’ neglect.
Their problems all started because the Clarmos couldn’t say no to an acquaintance who wanted to rent the three-bedroom bungalow they purchased in 2004. The Clarmos had just finished renovating the house when the man — a childhood friend of one of their sons — showed up at their doorstep in the spring of 2005. The couple had been planning to sell the property, which was just down the street from their home, and hoping for a $20,000-to-$25,000 profit to put toward retirement. Mike explained their plans, but the man persisted. He needed a place for his wife and children.
Mike said OK, figuring he would make some of the investment back in rent, and sell later, when the house was sure to be worth more.
Instead, cracks started appearing in their nest egg soon after the family moved in. “It broke our hearts to see the condition of the house deteriorate as it did,” says Cathy.
Probably the worst thing was that the house constantly reeked of animal urine.
The family had a dog, cat and rabbit. Drywall and floors were damaged. The garage was so cluttered that the couple was sure there was a fire risk.
Photos they took also show the front yard of the home littered with junk, including car parts such as engines and tires. The woman, who drove a school bus, damaged the eavestroughing after backing the vehicle into the house, Mike says. Rent was often late.
The Clarmos decided to sell the property after a business deal went sour. In April 2009, they gave the tenants more than two months of notice to vacate.
The tenants offered to buy the house “as is” for a reduced price. The Clarmos agreed. But the tenants couldn’t get a mortgage. The Clarmos abandoned their plan to sell after the husband approached Mike and tearfully told him he couldn’t find another house to rent.
A year later, they planned again to sell the house. But the husband, whose wife was no longer living with him, told Mike he was now well versed in tenants’ rights. He wasn’t going to move, and if Mike wanted to terminate the tenancy, he would have to go before the Landlord and Tenant Board.
Mike did so twice. He says he came away convinced that as the landlord, he was considered the bad guy.
At the first hearing, Mike spoke with a mediator, who suggested he allow his tenant to stay at the house rent-free for five months with the condition that he move by the end of this month. The man’s lawyer suggested that Mike could get him out by the end of October if he gave him a few thousand dollars on top of free rent for three months. Mike refused. He recalls the lawyer telling him that he would regret his decision as he was bound to lose the case.
Mike produced photos that he had taken of the house at the first hearing. The adjudicator joked about the one of the cluttered garage. “‘It looks like my garage,'” Mike recalls him saying. In his written decision, adjudicator Greg Joy dismisses or challenges every complaint made by the landlord.
The Clarmos found a prospective buyer for the home soon after and again applied to have the tenancy agreement terminated by Nov. 1, which was also the closing date of the sale.
The adjudicator in the second hearing reserved his decision, which allowed the tenant to stay put for at least the time being.
Mike’s lawyer suggested they give the tenant $2,000 to get out of the house. The tenant’s lawyer then came back with another figure — $3,000 — plus the demand that his client be allowed to stay until Nov. 15. Worried the board could rule in favour of the tenant and that the prospective buyers of the house would pull out of the deal, Mike agreed.
The former tenant would not return my calls.
The $3,000, which the couple feels was extortion, plus $1,400 in legal fees and $1,000 to refill the home’s oil tank are the smaller losses. The Clarmos did sell the house for $240,000 — about $25,000 more than what it cost them to buy and renovate the property in 2004. But the selling price was still a far cry from the $290,000 to $300,000 a real estate broker had told them the house would have been worth.
The Clarmos don’t know if they should be angrier with their tenants or the board.
They realize the board exists primarily to protect tenants, and with children, their tenant was bound to get even more sympathy. But, they say, their case illustrates the need for rules to protect the good landlords.
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/Landlords+deal+when+comes+tenants/4000351/story.html#ixzz18dUrkiwP
Handouts, rent banks, sole-sourced deals galore drive industry watchers crazy
By SUE-ANN LEVY, Toronto Sun
For more than 10 years a tenant group — with strong ties to left-wing city bureaucrats — has seen its sole-source contract not only renewed, no questions asked, but its funding has more than quadrupled as well.
In 1999, when I first reported on the “purchase of service” contract given to the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Association (FMTA), the group got $97,510 to run a hotline service.
This year, the group got $446,760 to operate the hotline, educate tenants and provide outreach.
The FMTA money comes out of the shelter, support and housing budget — the same people who brought us the $11.5-million Peter St. shelter boondoggle.
In 1999, FMTA had 5,000 members. Interim executive director Geordie Dent told me Thursday they have anywhere from 1,000-3,000 members at the moment.
In 1999, the hotline took nearly 7,500 calls.
According to statistics provided by city spokesman Pat Anderson, the hotline responded to 7,566 calls and e-mails to Sept. 30.
The tenant gravy train doesn’t end there.
For at least eight years, tenant uberlord Coun. Michael Walker has presided over a special fund that gives grants to tenants disputing above-guideline rent increases.
Walker’s vote-buying pet project has a budget of $75,000 this year.
This year the city also has access to $1.9 million in provincial rent bank money, which gives loans to people in danger of being evicted from their apartments for rent arrears. Some $570,000 of that goes to administration, the rest for no-interest loans averaging $1,725 each. Anderson reports the repayment rate of those loans is a mere 40%.
Then there’s Centre for Equality Rights in Accommodation (CERA), which got $80,705 in city money to help “extremely vulnerable” tenants at risk of being evicted.
All of this drives paralegal Harry Fine crazy for one simple reason.
He feels precious taxpayer money is being used to fund “cronies and organizations” duplicating what the province does very ably.
Fine, a former Landlord Tenant Board adjudicator who now operates his own business advocating for landlords, says there are about 80 community legal clinics — 13 alone in Toronto — that deal largely with landlord and tenant matters.
In addition, he says, at every LTB office in Toronto, there are lawyers paid for by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants (another provincially-funded organization) to give advice to and represent tenants at their hearings.
The LTB also has its own hotline, he says, which provides “far better advice” than the FMTA.
Fine feels both CERA and the city’s Tenant Defence Fund are no longer necessary, either. He says a policy document on the rights of tenants issued by Barbara Hall of the Ontario Human Rights Commission in 2009 makes it “near impossible” for a landlord to evict a tenant.
He doesn’t understand why the city would be dishing out grants to fight rent increases when “fair” provincial adjudication is there for tenants.
“Considering the duplication and almost obscene support for tenants provincially, the city has no place providing duplication of services,” he says.
Fine and others have also expressed concern with FMTA’s secrecy and the radical left affiliations of several of its 10 full and part-time staff.
Dent, who writes on a website called MediaCoop (among others), has openly expressed anti-Israel sentiments and advocated for the G20 protesters in his blog.
Sarah Vance, listed as one of FMTA’s hotline counsellors, was a former spokesman and employee of OCAP. Kelly Bentley, one of FMTA’s outreach organizers, is also a former OCAP member.
When asked about the musings on his blog, Dent contended his writing is in no way “related” to FMTA.
He also insisted their work does not duplicate that done by the province, noting the LTB does not have a good handle on city bylaws or how a variety of legislation related to tenants fits together.
But a tenant activist, who did not want to be named, said sole-sourced contracts like that given to FMTA must be stopped and a full audit done of whether they’ve delivered good value for the millions they’ve received in the past 10 years.
“What’s really needed is an independent review by somebody outside of shelter, support and housing who has no vested interest,” the activist said.
http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/sueann_levy/2010/11/18/16209761.html
FYI – Please See the full Bill 112 here:
http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/bills/bills_detail.do?locale=en&Intranet=&BillID=2408
This bill has passed first reading and has gone to second reading.
EXPLANATORY NOTE
The Bill makes several amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, including the following:
1. The Bill increases the time limit for most tenant and some landlord applications to the Landlord and Tenant Board from one to two years. Tenants can go back in time two years to file a complaint.
2. The Bill requires a landlord who terminates a tenancy for personal use to compensate the tenant and expands the circumstances in which a landlord is required to compensate a tenant if the landlord terminates a tenancy for the purpose of demolition or conversion to non-residential use. Formula given for compensation.
3. The Bill prohibits a landlord from increasing the rent charged to a new tenant by more than the guideline and abolishes landlord applications to the Board for above guideline rent increases where there has been a significant increase in the cost of utilities. No new rent increases to market rent beyond the guideline when you have tenant turnover.
4. The Bill requires that the Board dismiss an application from a landlord who has been given a work order under section 225 of the Act or an order under section 15.2 of the Building Code Act, 1992 and has not completed the items in the work order or the order. Excuse for not paying rent.
5. The Bill requires a landlord to obtain a licence with respect to a rental unit in a residential complex containing six or more rental units in order to enter into a tenancy agreement or renew an existing tenancy agreement. Money grab for Multi-family 6+
Something that we should not ignore! This would not only radically change the rental industry affecting each and every landlord from the smallest LL to the largest corporation, it would demand the creation of a huge new bureaucracy policing the actions of all of us!
Find your Ontario MPP here: http://www.ontla.on.ca/web/members/members_current.do?locale=en
Make sure they know how you feel. Call them or put something down in writing, make sure that they hear their constituents point of view.
Please also make your feelings known to the Minister of Housing:
Hon Rick Bartolucci, MPP
Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing
Ontario Liberal Party
Contact Information:
rbartolucci.mpp@liberal.ola.org
Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing
17th Floor
777 Bay Street
Toronto, Ontario M5G 2E5
Tel 416-585-7000
Fax 416-585-6470
By MICHELE MANDEL, Toronto Sun
She’s b-a-a-a-a-ck.
The Bentley-driving, condo-trashing tenant from hell who likes to claim she’s a Persian princess is back before the Landlord and Tenant Board for the umpteenth time.
Call her Mojgan Amir-Davani — or by her other six known monikers: Mozhe Aamere, Mozhe (Mozhgan) Avanni, Mozhe Amerjhajar, Mozhe Sheena Mere, Mozhgan Amere Ghajaar or Amiri Mojgan.
Whatever her alias, her modus operandi is the same: She’s terrorized at least four high-end condo owners in North York, convincing them she’s a successful broadcasting executive only to turn into a destructive squatter who expertly plays the system for months of free rent before she’s finally turfed out and moves on to her next victim.
We first told her tale here in January, of frustrated landlord Jane Randall who rented her investment property to the dark haired beauty only to be stiffed with $12,000 in unpaid rent and thousands more in damage.
Claiming to be suffering from cancer and refusing to move, her dog’s feces spilling off her balcony, the carpets stained with blood and urine, Amir-Davani was brilliantly manipulative.
When Randall repeatedly turned to the tenancy board for help, she was told to wait. And wait some more.
Six months later, she finally left only to move down the street into a Hollywood Ave. condo owned by another small landlord who’s now going through the same horror story.
We’ll call him Frank because he’s too embarrassed to use his real name. Renting out his two-bedroom luxury unit for the first time, the 35-year-old scientist was counting on the $1,920 monthly rent to help pay off his student loans and mortgage.
He figured his realtor had found him the ideal tenant when she arrived in a chauffeur-driven Bentley to sign the deal in February.
She said she was newly arrived from California and provided a reference no one seems to have checked.
Within a few months, his kitchen was damaged by fire, tenants below were complaining about feces dripping from her balcony and her rent cheques began to bounce as hard as a rubber ball.
Amir-Davani didn’t respond to a request for comment.
During a recent inspection, a contractor told Frank it will cost $9,800 to repair the damage so far. He’s also out $2,000 in legal fees and at least $6,000 in arrears.
“It’s hard to sleep some nights,” Frank admits. “The financial cost is one thing. But then there’s the emotional thing: Is she ever going to be out?”
He’s turned to Harry Fine, president of Landlord Solutions and the paralegal who helped evict Amir-Davani from a Harrison Garden condo in 2007.
“I see it every week and my heart goes out to them,” says Fine of naive landlords scammed by professional squatters. “They don’t check references. They don’t do credit checks.”
She finally agreed to move by Aug. 7 as long as Frank waived her back rent and damages. Not surprisingly, the date came and went, with her still comfortably ensconced in his ruined condo.
What she didn’t know is that Fine arranged for her to be confronted by Frank, Randall, and her 2007 landlord when she arrived at her eviction hearing Aug. 9.
“Like a husband walking into a room to be faced by his three ex-wives who had been exchanging stories, the tenant walked into the hearing room Monday morning to find not one but three of her victims,” Fine recalls. “She was furious.”
A landlord and tenant adjudicator gave her until Aug. 31 to leave. But Frank’s hardly home free: As soon as Amir-Davani files an appeal — and she’s vowed to do so — he’ll be back waiting for yet another hearing and yet another eviction date.
“The legal system just takes forever and is so weighted to the side of tenants,” he complains.
Which makes even less sense when this notorious tenant has been the subject of so many eviction hearings.
“She’s been in the exact same hearing room and still it goes on? How does someone get away with that?” he sighs.
“She’s the tenant from hell and beyond.”
http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/michele_mandel/2010/08/20/15092061.html
The devastation in this video should have been avoided. The tenants responsible for this destruction have done this before. Too many times. Their victims: small, residential landlords who were vulnerable, unsuspecting and could ill afford what would happen to their investment properties.
The victims: Tyler and Lisa Sage, Amatal Wadood, Gary and Nancy Woodley, Judin and Anne Xavier, Lois Debeaucamp. There are more.
The story is the same for each of them. The tenants pose as a responsible and financially responsible couple, seeking a nice home in a lovely neighbourhood. They express a sincere desire to raise their little girl in a safe area, and are planning to purchase their own home one day soon. Landlords love their story, they appear to be excellent prospective tenants.
Soon after they move in, the games begin. Bounced cheques, emails full of excuses and lies. The moment the landlords begin to stand up to them, the truth is realized. They lied from the beginning. They know the system. They threaten, and hold property hostage while the system governing evictions grinds along. All the while, the conditions inside and outside the homes deteriorates. When it’s over, the rent arrears are significant, the damage is unbelievable. Instead of being ashamed or remorseful, however, they file applications against their landlords for harassment, and file Claims in the higher courts for the heaps of belongings they leave behind.
These tenants do not face any exposure or consequence before the Landlord and Tenant Board, and they are empowered to do it over and over and over again. It’s time to ask WHY.
Recently a Newfoundland landlord found himself in a controversy regarding a rental ad he posted on Kijiji.ca.
After advertising his condo rental, the landlord was contacted by a potential tenant who referred to an ad for the same 
property on another Internet classified site, Craigslist.
Suspicious, the landlord researched Craigslist and indeed found his property advertised by an impostor.
The fake landlord was asking half the rent, and allowing both smoking and pets on the property, which the actual landlord had restricted.
The local police found there was nothing they could do to stop the fraud. Craigslist also failed to pull the ad or warn potential victims of the fraud, so the landlord took matters into his own hands. He contacted the fraudsters directly, and posed as a tenant to gain more information.
He was told to send a deposit, and upon receipt of the funds, the “landlord” would ship the keys. He was invited to view the apartment on his own. Eventually, the scammers became suspicious of the real landlord’s probing inquiry, and pulled the ad.
In a related incident, a RCMP officer went undercover to bust an Internet rental scam in Kelowna, B.C. In this case, a teenager and her 21-year old friend posted an ad for a rental on Castanet. The 17-year old posed as the landlord’s daughter. A victim deposited some money in the “landlord’s” bank account without becoming suspicious of the scam. The victim believed that the property could not be shown at that time because it was currently occupied. A few days later, another victim posted a warning on the Internet regarding that ad. That prompted a call to the police.
The fraudsters made the mistake of continuing to communicate with their victim and demanded the rest of the agreed-upon payment. But instead of meeting with the victim, the cons met an undercover officer. Both were arrested and charged with fraud.
In the U.S., landlords have been warned by the F.B.I. of a rash on similar Internet scams. Perhaps the most notorious was a couple who moved across country to an Arizona home offered for rent in Craigslist. The family of nine could not believe the luck of finding a large house with a swimming pool for such low rent and immediately sent a deposit to hold the property. In this case, the tenants were given access, and actually started moving into the property before the real owner returned from vacation to find the family in her home.
In an act of great kindness, the owner allowed the victimized tenants to remain for some time until they could find another place to live.
While some of these frauds may seen obvious to landlords, who understand the normal rental process, they are not so obvious to renters. It is estimated that scammers often net thousands of dollars from each of these fake ads.
Some landlords are becoming skeptical of posting Internet ads, and relying instead upon rental signs, or newspaper classifieds. Others post warning within their own ads, for instance, advising that all applicants must meet with the landlord personally, and the approved applicant will undergo a credit check before they will be asked to pay a deposit.
by Chris on July 5, 2010
While performing a tenant background check, it’s important to keep the focus on profitability. Does this candidate possess the potential to pay rent for the entire term of the lease?
Tenant Screening for the Traditional Applicant
The majority of rental applicants will have traditional employment. An employer reference is a crucial part of your tenant background check.
Be certain that the company you are seeking a reference from is a legitimate business concern, not a fiction or a business wholely owned by the applicant.
Some employers are reluctant to discuss an employee over the phone, or may insist they do not offer employee references.
There are two ways to handle that situation:
First, you could offer to fax a copy of the verification statement from the application to the employer to show the employee’s authorization to release information.
Alternatively, you may place the onus on the applicant to ask their personnel office to release the information you need. Be persistent and do not move forward with the applicant until you are able to verify the applicant’s employment history and salary.
Tenant Screening of Self-Employed Tenants
Many entreprenuers prefer self-employment to a standard job. Today, self employment is a popular alternative to unemployment; however, more than half of these businesses will fail within the first four years.
When verifying income of the self-employed candidate, job history becomes a crucial part of the tenant screening process. A candidate who has chosen self-employment as a way of life is probably more suited for the business world than someone who is scrambling to recover after a job layoff.
The self-employed applicant may not keep payroll records, although that may be required to properly assess taxes. Indeed, the payment of taxes – or rather the incorrect payment of taxes and fees, may be what puts the business under. Perhaps the biggest risk a landlord faces when renting to a self-employed tenant is having a business creditor garnish the income.
Successful candidates will have banking and tax records to verify income.
Tenant credit reports are indispensible in showing if the self-employed candidate is overspending, or struggling to fund a business venture.
When conducting a tenant background check on the self-employed, look for:
If you find little evidence of the self-employed business outside of the rental application, you may have cause to worry about this tenant’s potential.
Once you have collected the income information you need:
Decide if the applicant’s income is enough to justify the rental price of your property. Typically, rent should not exceed one-third to one-half of overall income.
Determine whether the applicant has a steady work history. Bouncing between jobs is a sign this candidate may not possess the commitment needed to be a good renter. Periods of unemployment foreshadow bills going unpaid.
Also, look for clues that the applicant is spending beyond their means.
This post is provided by Tenant Verification Services, Inc., helping landlords reduce the risks of renting with fraud prevention tools that include Tenant Screening, Tenant Background Checks, (U.S. and Canada)
