Landlord and Tenant Forums: By Landlords For Landlords

Dear Mr/Ms. Tenant,

I have purchased a rental property for several reasons. This open letter to you is to share information so that we can be a team. After all, you need me, and I need you.

1. I am not getting rich on this venture. In fact, for the first 12-18 months of me buying this property, I am going to lose money. Even then, this duplex/triplex that you are living in will net me approx $200-$300 per month after all expenses have been paid. Doing the math, I believe that works out to $2,400-$3,600 per year. At some point in time, I hope that this property gains value, and I can sell it for more that I bought it. It's a great concept that you could work towards in your lifetime - if you are so inclinded. Until then, you need a place to live, and I need a tenant.

2. Please take care of our property. It's your home, but it's my house. If I know that you will keep your home in decent condition, I will be much more motivated to ask you to help me pick out a colour next time I paint the walls, or replace the carpet.

3. I promise to respect you and your personal rights. I will give you all the notice I can before I have to enter your apartment. After all, this is your home, but it's my house. If I need to replace a toilet, or fix something, I will give you advanced notice. I hope the respect will be mutual. After all, it's the little things that count. If we can all get along, we will both enjoy working with each other. I am not here to mess with your life.

4. I was you once, perhaps you will be me one day. I know what it's like to rent. I know what it's like to be a tenant. It's actually a decent way to live. I never worried about the roof, the plumbing, needing a new stove, or fridge, or even if the carpet was getting worn down and needed replacing. I never worried if the city increased utilities, or taxes - I paid a flat rent, which can only increase by a very small amount each year. I let my landlord worry and take care of all of that.

You need me, and I need you. If neither one of us are jerks, this will work out just fine.

Sincerely,
Mr/Ms. Landlord.

Toddcan that made my day.

Nice work!

What we need is a damage deposit in Ontario.

Sure, but I see that as "NOT BEING MY PROBLEM." Go invest in something else like ETFs or something.

Sure, Nicetenant, we landlords can go and invest in ETFs or whatever other than rental property - and you can go live under a tree in a park or in an alley somewhere.

Nice letter, Toddcan, I will refer that one for sure.

Typical arrogance.

Hello Folks....I am new here so I apologize if I appear rude here by just jumping in like I own the Place.

I did not know that there was no Damage Deposit in Ontario because I am from BC where we do have a Damage Deposit.
My experience with the pros and cons of Damage Deposits is a 6 and one half dozen scenario.

My Tenant signed a contract for $1000/mo and accordingly gave me a damage deposit of 500 according to BC Tenancy Regulations
that stipulate a maximum allowable of 1/2 months rent.

My Tenant just gave me 30 day Notice to end Tenacy along with a money order for $500 (1/2 months rent) for the last month and stated in the Letter of Notice that the $500 Damage Deposit shall be used in Lieu of Rent.

What the Tenant did here is against Tenancy Law. In so doing he effectively returned the Damage Deposit to himself without authority leaving me with my fingers crossed that when he moves out that there is no damage to the unit.Whichever way you slice it I am either 500 short on rent or the Damage Deposit just went poof. I can see why Ontario doesnt bother with damage deposits.

So Immediately I serve the Tenant a 10 Day Order to End Tenancy for failure to pay the Rent and of course the Local Tenancy Branch is in fiull support and issues an Order of Posession and an ORDER TO Pay Rent arrears. But they have NO ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITY

The point here is quite simply..........If the Tenant ignores the above how do you get your money??? YOU DONT.

PS.........And does anyone have an idea of the cost to get rid of a Tenant that ignores a Moving Order??

It all deprends how much time the Bailiffs spend at $120.00 Bucks an hour including truck rental to Physically move the Tenant and his belongings out. At least a 1k bill.

So what good do Damage Deposits really do??

Sorry this doesn't apply to me as a tenant, we pay all our bills/utilities separately and they are in our names.

They work very well.

With screening you can find tenants who won't trash your place. The problem is even reasonable tenants can leave damages and garbage and need to be motivated to clean up.

Your lucky you are in BC, and can get a damage deposit.

In Ontario, landlords are not allowed holding a "damage deposit", even if its written and agreed to in the rental agreement. RTA in Ontario was just recently called Tenant Protection Act - go figure.

How about an Open Letter to Mr/Ms. Landlord - from a tenant!

Actually I'm pretty sure we've had one in the past. But if you want to, go ahead!

Have you seen 9 Things your Landlord Won't Tell You on Huffington Post?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/02/01/things-landlord-wont-tell-you_n_2600356.html

That one had me hopping - wrote a response to it on my blog. Perhaps a little snarky, but oh well.

http://lovelandlording.blogspot.ca/2013/02/9-things-your-landlord-wont-tell-you.html

YOU ARE AWESOME!

Followed a link to an article called Nine Things Your Landlord Won't Tell You on Huffington Post - tried to respond in a comment but the site was wonky and was getting frustrated... so here is my response instead.

Don't know if I'll manage Nine... but lets see, shall we?

However Many Things Your Landlord WILL Tell You:

The rent you are asked to pay is used to pay the bills on the house you live in. I know it doesn't seem like it - but trust me, darling, owning a home costs more money than you think. In addition to the cost of carrying the mortgage, utitlities and maintenance and repair - which, you presumably have some awareness of? - there are things that, if you've never owned a home, you might not be aware of. The insurance, for example, costs us a heck of a lot more on a house someone else lives in that it would on one that we live in... as in close to 3x as much. And then there are property taxes, of course.

Most landlords do charge slightly higher than the bare minimum required to cover the expenses of the unit though - that is because we've learned that almost every single tenant will screw us over one way or another, so we have to build in a cushion to try to cover that.

When you don't pay your rent, we still have to pay the mortgage, property taxes, hydro, water, gas, insurance, maintenance & repairs on YOUR home - even if that means that we don't have anything left to pay for ours.

When you withhold some portion of your rent because of unexpected expenses like a car repair, cell phone bill, medical emergency, bus pass you had to replace... whatever... you are essentially borrowing money from us - without our
consent. We are often sorry about your bad luck - but not so fond of having it visited on us.

Last month's rent is collected not because we are mean, and trying to keep you from finding a place to live but to protect both of us. If you ever actually bothered to give proper notice when you left, you would have last month's rent available for the next landlord, and it wouldn't be such an issue for you. Hey - here's a thought - if you actually gave proper notice when you were moving, not only would you have your last month's rent back with interest, you could probably also have a really good reference. You know...because it is so rare.

When you give notice that you want to move on, we typically wish you well and start looking for new tenants. If you change your mind, you really do need to try to come to some agreement with us - and the nastier and uglier you are about this, the less likely we are going to work out such an agreement.

There are these really big smelly trucks that come by every week to pick up your garbage. All you have to do is get it to the curb on the right day of the week. Storing your garbage in the back yard, or worse, in the house, means the smell stays in the unit and doesn't go away. It really is not that hard, honest. And if you'd just make that little bit of effort, your landlord will love you for it. Really!

Problems that are small are a lot easier to fix than problems that have been allowed to get big and ugly. We really do appreciate it when you let us know about problems before they turn into crises.

The reason you have a hard time finding reasonable landlords is because so many of us have been screwed sooooooooooooooo many times. There is no support for landlords, really. When there is a problem, the landlord is required to pay lots of extra money to the agencies that are supposed to help to solve the problem - but they really don't. If we're really, really lucky, after we pay all that money to jump through all the hoops, all we wind up with is a useless piece of paper, which we have to pay more money to try to collect from you.

We know that YOU would never ever screw us over, make a mess, damage our property, let your kitty and your dog and your children stink up and/or decorate the joint, refuse to pay rent, deal drugs out of our homes, etc etc .... but you know, every single tenant we've ever rented to has promised all those same things you're promising.


So yeah... there are some pretty unreasonable landlords out there...and then there are others, like us, who have decided to just not bother any more. Congratulations... you win. Don't have a lot of reasonable housing options any more? Well gee, I wonder how THAT happened?!