Posts Tagged ‘help for landlords’

Landlords want tenants to clear snow

Monday, January 31st, 2011


BYLAW: A city hall committee is set to consider a proposal for a new bylaw that would govern who has to shovel what

By KATE DUBINSKI, The London Free Press

If there’s ever been a time when snow removal has been on Londoners’ minds, this has been the year.

But some landlords are crying foul over suggestions they be made responsible for clearing snow from their London tenants’ walkways and driveways.

“What’s next? Are landlords going to be responsible for making sure their tenants eat their vegetables every day?” said a member of the Ontario Landlord Association.

“It’s Canada. We all know we’re going to have to deal with ice and snow. I don’t think the city should be involved in these issues,” added her husband and fellow landlord, Mike Schweitzer. The couple are based in Brantford.

The Ontario Landlord Association represents landlords with properties that have 10 or fewer units.

The city’s built and natural environment committee will hear arguments Monday for a new property-standards bylaw to deal with snow removal in rental units.

“There’s no recourse for Londoners. Right now, you either kick up a fuss with the landlord or property-management company, or you go before the landlord and tenant board, which takes time and money,” said Tiffany Roschkow. She is proposing the city consider a new bylaw to make landlords responsible for shovelling or plowing walkways, driveways, ramps and parking spaces.

“It makes sense. You move into a rental property and you expect that kind of thing to be done for you.”

Roschkow lives in a three-storey walk-up in Wortley Village.

Several days before Snowmageddon, the building manager there died, leaving no one responsible for the snow clearing, Roschkow said. Piles of snow built up around cars and around the dumpster and recycling bins. Tenants began leaving their garbage bags in the hallways.

“For the garbage, I called the city and they came out right away because it was a property-standards issue but for the snow, we couldn’t do anything about it,” Roschkow said.

Someone eventually cleared a pathway to the front door about the width of a standard shovel. that didn’t help much when an elderly tenant out doing errands fell on the walkway, she noted.

“There was nothing being done about it, so I started nosing around and I realized that London doesn’t have a bylaw for rental units like Toronto does,” said Roschkow.

In London, landlords are responsible for keeping rental units in a good state of repair as required under the Residential Tenancies Act.

In Toronto, an additional property-standards bylaw states, “Steps, landings, walks, driveways, parking spaces, ramps and similar areas shall be cleared of snow and ice during and immediately following a snowfall to provide safe access and egress for persons and vehicles.”

The Ontario Landlord Association recommends leases include a section about who is responsible for snow clearing.

Ward 11 Coun. Denise Brown supports Roschkow’s proposal for a newer bylaw.

She has a visually impaired acquaintance who was stuck in his house after Snowmageddon in December and whose landlord told him to shovel his own driveway. “Eventually I had my son and husband do his driveway, but I can’t do that for the entire ward,” Brown said.

“I want staff to look at Toronto’s bylaw and what happens in other cities and to bring back recommendations so we can set something up here.”

Ontario’s landlord and tenant process is broken

Saturday, December 4th, 2010

Ottawa Citizen November 22, 2010

Re: The Shame Of St. Patrick St., Nov. 14.

I am the owner of Landlord Legal, a small firm in Barrie, working to keep up with landlords in need.

Thank you for your efforts in exposing the reality of the eviction process.

So often, landlords bring these applications to the Landlord and Tenant Board and lack witnesses because of fear of retaliation. Police can’t assist in matters that are still “open investigations.”

Lacking witnesses and police records, the applications fail, or we must instead find other, safer applications to the board such as rent arrears or damages to the unit, instead of the biggest reason: the rental unit is a crack house, and other tenants are disrupted and endangered.

It is incredibly difficult to terminate tenancies in this province. The Landlord is held to an onerous burden of proof. The tenant is often enabled and in fact encouraged to drag things out.

These stories are taking place all over Ontario, every day. The Landlord and Tenant Board is profiting from the misfortune of the residential landlord, and turns a blind eye to repeat offender tenants, who make a mockery of the process.

Right out of the gate, the landlord loses. It costs $170 to bring a tenant to the board, while tenants pay $45 to bring a landlord to the board.

Affordable housing in this province will continue to decline as private residential landlords realize they have bitten off more than they intended to chew.

C. April Stewart, Landlord Legal

As a small business landlord, I highly recommend TVS!

Saturday, December 4th, 2010
I have to admit that while I’ve been a landlord for a while I have never done a credit check. I always looked at work references and called the previous landlord. Not that long ago I did these screening techniques, it was all fine, and I still got burned when the tenant changed jobs. I have now joined up as an OLA member and have started making credit checks using TVS (Tenant Verification Systems).  TVS has been very helping in screening tenants.   I have verified tenant applications and found ‘holes’ in some applications that I never would have seen before.  I would recommend doing a TVS credit check for every applicant you are thinking of handing over the keys to!
R. Francis
Toronto

Results from the Bedbug Summit

Wednesday, November 24th, 2010

The OLA was the official voice of “small business landlords” at MPP Colle’s helpful and important “Bedbug Summit” at Queen’s Park in September.

We would like to thank Mr. Colle and his helpful staff for organizing the Summit.

The OLA was proud to have April Stewart, an OLA member and the owner of Landlord Legal (www.landlordlegal.ca) speak on our behalf. We also had several members present in the audience asking the hard questions and providing a strong voice for small business landlords.

By all accounts small business landlords were well represented. Ms. Stewart’s speech created such a strong impression, MPP Colle spoke about her in his closing comments. The other OLA members present made a huge impact, even confronting Toronto Star columnist Joe Fiorito and educating him about the difference between REIT corporate landlords and small business landlords. Thank you Skitter. Thank you BigFoot.

For the first time in years, small business landlords were on the stage, in the spot-light, and making their voices… YOUR VOICE…heard!! The OLA for small business landlords is a non-profit, education organization created to help small business landlords in Ontario. Everyone involved is a landlord in Ontario…just like you.

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

M.P.P. to Release Recommendations to Province
Arising from Bed Bug Summit at Queen’s Park

On Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010, Mike Colle, MPP for Eglinton-Lawrence, will release his recommendations to the Province of Ontario, arising out of the Bed Bug Summit hosted at Queen’s Park on September 29th, 2010.

“Bed Bug infestation is not just a Toronto problem. We need a comprehensive provincial strategy to help deal with this scourge.” said MPP Mike Colle, who has led the fight to bring the issue forward at Queen’s Park.

“It is imperative that all sectors of society, along with all levels of government, engage in a comprehensive and co-operative effort to fight Bed Bug infestation,” said Colle.

Key stakeholders and community advocates involved in the front line efforts in fighting the Bed Bug infestation were invited to the Bed Bug Summit at Queen’s Park to share their best practices in dealing with Bed Bugs, and offer solutions on how to best control infestations.

MPP Colle is hoping that key recommendations will be adopted and implemented by all levels of government, and everyone dealing with infestation.

MEDIA AVAILABILTY

Date: Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010
Time: 2:00 p.m.
Location: Queen’s Park – Media Studio
Main Legislative Building
Room 139

For additional information, please contact:

Nancy Caetano
Executive Assistant
Office of Mike Colle, M.P.P.
Eglinton-Lawrence
Tel: 416-325-4091
ncaetano@liberal.ola.org

www.Ontariolandlords.ca

Tenant gravy train: Levy

Saturday, November 20th, 2010

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