Archive for the ‘Pets’ Category

BC Landlords & Tenants Are Asking For Our Help In Dealing With Pets

Friday, November 3rd, 2017

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You Can Play An Important Role in Helping Improve the Canadian Rental Industry By Sharing Your Experiences To Help BC Landlords And Tenants Create New Rental Policy On The Pet Issue in British Columbia

As part of our “Let’s Improve the Ontario Rental Industry” we have invited landlords and tenants to share their opinions on how we can make these improvements. These opinions are from individual contributors and are not the opinions of the Ontario Landlords Association. We believe by fostering communication between landlords and tenants we can improve the Ontario rental industry.  Landlords and tenants can share your thoughts and opinions by emailing us at landlordtenantsolutions@groupmail.com In this case let’s help BC Landlords and Tenants!

Let’s Help BC Create Fair Rules for BC Landlords and BC Tenants With Pets

Ontario Landlords know how important it is to work together to come up with ideas and solutions to improve the rental industry. Our members came up with thousands of emails sent in when we made key suggestions to the province on what changes need to be made to improve the Ontario rental industry.

Led by our many experienced and successful landlords we have also come up with thousands of tips and strategies for landlords to succeed. And a key aspect of all the great advice provided to OLA members is how important it is to have a ‘win-win’ business relationship with your tenants.

Experienced landlords know great tenants are looking for great landlords with amazing rental properties. You need to be extremely careful not to rent to bad, unethical tenants who will manipulate the system. These are tenants who will “play games” with you and use the Landlord and Tenant Board to delay evictions.

The good news is the reality is there are lots of great people out there looking to rent a property. These are people who will pay the rent on time, respect the law, and treat you and your rental property with respect.

These great tenants are looking for knowledgeable, professional landlords who not only know the the Landlord and Tenant Board and Residential Tenancy Act, but also are willing to work with their tenant clients for a win-win business relationship!

An Ottawa landlord posted in our members forum:

“A young couple saw my rental and liked it. But they had a bunch of questions for me. The questions where everything to what would happen is something breaks to how to deal with a move out after one year.

I told them I was an OLA member and a professional landlord and answered all their questions clearly based on the law. They were super impressed and decided to rent my condo over the others they saw. They told me “my professionalism made the difference and why they decided to rent my place…because of me!”

By working with your tenants you can create a win-win situation.”

british columbia landlords pets

BC Landlords And Tenants Have Asked For Our Help

These days BC landlords and tenants are having an important debate on dealing with renting to tenants who have pets.

It’s a very important issue out there as the new government is looking at making a lot of big changes in the way the BC rental business is run. Even the media is doing some major reporting on the issue of BC tenants and pets recently.

Let’s Speak Out To Help BC Landlords And Tenants Create New and Fair Rental Policy

Here are some facts about how the “pet situation” is currently in British Columbia:

1. As of now BC Landlords Can Demand “No Pets” to Tenants

While many small landlords will think this make sense it’s important to see the social consequences of this policy.

2. BC Families Forced to “Give Up” Their Pets Who Are Part of Their Family

According to facts provided over 1,700 families who need to rent were forced to give up their pets and companion animals in order to secure a rental property.  It’s a pretty shocking number and it certainly is something that needs to be changed there.

3. Forcing to Abandon a Pet/Family Member Just to Get Accepted For a Rental Isn’t Fair

Many tenants feel landlords need to treat tenants with pets equally with tenants who don’t have pets.

Let’s Help BC Landlords and Tenants Create a Better Rental Industry Based On Your Experiences

BC Landlords and tenants are asking for your help based on your experiences. They want real world advice and not some salaried spokesperson who doesn’t even own rentals speaking down to small landlords.

BC landlords, BC tenants and the provincial government are looking for our feedback to help improve the BC rental industry.

Ontario landlords what are your experiences dealing with tenants with pets?

Many OLA members are pet owners and pet lovers and the current situation in British Columbia needs to change.

However, we advise our BC friends that it’s not as simple as a “make it illegal” for landlords to refuse pets.  It’s complicated and we want to help.

For example what about pet damages?

What if pets bother other tenants?

We want your feedback!

Let’s Help BC Create Fair Rules for BC Landlords and BC Tenants With Pets

There is talk that soon British Columbia landlords will have to follow the Ontario model. In BC some people want a “no pets” policy to be Human Rights Violation and the Residential Tenancy Act to not allow “no pets” policies.

Ontario Landlords know this is a complicated situation and so we ask you to share your thoughts. And sent them soon as new rules and legislation is on the way.

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Toronto Star: Ontario Tenants Can Offer Rent Upfront

Monday, March 31st, 2014

April 1st, 2014

Ontario Tenants Can Offer Rent Upfront

Can tenants voluntarily pay the landlord extra rent or a deposit for pets?

A recent column in the Toronto Star has caused a lot of excitement for residential landlords all over the province.

Ontario landlords often complain about the challenges caused by not being able to charge tenants a damage deposit.

It’s common for landlords to face a big clean up job or lots of needed repairs when tenants move out.

This not only costs landlords a lot of money, it also has a negative impact on new tenants who move in and expect a clean and well maintained property as this The Grid article explains.

To recoup the costs of cleaning the rental unit or fixing the property landlords have to pursue their former tenants and take them to Ontario Small Claims Court.

Some landlords are successful at this, as you can see at this story ‘Ontario Landlords and Small Claims Court‘, it can be a difficult and time-consuming process.

Some landlords simply cannot find their ex-tenants to serve them court papers to get the process even started.

Background

The Toronto Star story explained the background to their story.

Mississauga landlord Tanveer Bumbia rented to a tenant who was in Canada on a visitor visa.

At first Bumbia had concerns the tenant would be able to continue to fulfill the terms of the lease and keep paying rent.

However, he rented to her because the tenant paid one year of rent up front and a security deposit.

After moving in the tenant filed to get the extra rent and security deposit back because the Residential Tenancies Act states landlords can only request ‘first and last months’ rent.”

During the case an email from the tenant’s Realtor was disclosed.

The email clearly stated the tenant would pay all twelve months of rent.

Since the tenant offered the money voluntarily the judge decided it was legal (while the damage deposit was not because the tenant hadn’t offered it).

The tenant appealed the verdict and in February 2014 another decision was made a Superior Court judge.

This new decision (which can be read here) agreed with the first one. 

Judge Marrocco explained:

1. A landlord cannot require the tenant to pay anything more than just ‘first and last   

   month’s rent’ in order to agree to rent t the tenant.

2. If the tenant offered to pay more rent money upfront the landlord could accept it and it  

    would be legal

3. The landlord would be required to pay the tenant interest on this extra rent according

     to the Act

What Does This Mean For Ontario Landlords?

According to the Toronto Star story, the decision will have an impact on how tenants and landlords do business together.

For example, you can’t put in your rental advertisement that you will require anything more than just first and last months’ rental payment.

You also can’t advertise you will charge a security or pet deposit.

If the tenant voluntarily offers to pay the landlord extra rent the landlord can accept it.

Also, if the tenant volunteers the landlord can accept a deposit for things such as potential pet damages.

Landlords Speak Out

The Star story has caused a stir for landlords.

You can see this on some of the post at the Ontario Landlord Forum.

Some landlords are excited about giving tenants more options to negotiation with them.

“This could really be a game changer and help landlords and good tenants.

Tenants who might have bad credit or pets and are having a hard time finding a landlord to rent them because of the risks for the landlord…”

An new Ottawa landlord is confused about what the real rules for landlords are:

“What’s going on? I called the Landlord and Tenant Board 1-888 telephone number and asked about this. The customer service representative informed me landlords can only collect ‘first’ and ‘last’ months’ rent.”

An Alberta landlord finds the who situation bizarre because it doesn’t make sense to ever deny tenants the right to negotiate to rent from a landlord:

“Many of us out there think it’s insane landlords in Ontario can’t charge a damage, security or pet deposit.

This means the tenants don’ t have any ‘skin in the game’ and won’t treat your property right.

The fact that a person who wants to rent from you offer you more money might not be able to do so is just bizarre.”

Tenants Should Have the Right To Freely Negotiate

We support a tenant’s right to negotiate with a potential landlord.

We also feel it’s time to change the Residential Tenancies Act to allow landlords to ask for security and pet deposits.

With some protection against damages more people will invest in residential rental property in Ontario which will lead to more high quality rentals and more choices for tenants.

We will follow this carefully to help Ontario landlords navigate an ever more confusing legal environment.

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