Posts Tagged ‘Landlord and Tenant Board Ontario’
Did Your Tenants Pay September Rent?
Sunday, September 13th, 2020Tenant: I Called The By-Law Department Directly And They Ordered My Landlord To Fix Things…Or Get A Huge Fine!
Thursday, August 1st, 2019
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
You Can Make Sure You Get Fast Repairs By Just Calling Your Local By-Laws Department Directly And Reporting Your Landlord
Sorry I’m not a professional writer or anything but people here encouraged me to share my story to help other tenants. There have been lots of great tenant posts that have helped others like How Ontario Tenants Can Easily Break a Lease, so I’ll try.
Second, this has nothing to do with all the good landlords out there who care about their tenants and make sure their rentals are safe. This is just about the bad landlords.
I’m a single mum renting a place. As a single mum having a clean and safe property is a priority for me. So when I saw black mold in the bathroom I needed to act to protect my kids!
I called the landlord on Saturday night and texted 5 times and got no reply!
Even by Tuesday no reply, that’s 4 days of potentially poisoning my child!
I went to the Ontario tenants forum and asked others what to do and they said call the by-laws department directly and there is no need to even talk to your landlord because every city and town has laws for maintaining safe houses and tenants can call by-laws directly.
Landlords must follow the law!
By-Law Officer Was Professional And On My Side!
The by-laws officer came the next day and I asked her to do a huge, complete inspection of the rental house to protect me and my kids and she agreed. She saw the black mold.
But it didn’t end there, as the Officer inspected the entire rental property!
I was so happy to have help and protection for me and my family! She also found a lot of other issues (wiring, insulation) and even found the shingles were not up to code!
The by-laws officer said she would send a letter to the landlord demanding things get fixed or the landlord would be fined thousands of dollars. The landlord was also given a firm date to do the repairs, so they couldn’t “play games.”
A week later the landlord contacted me and gave me a schedule for lots of contractors to come to fix the mold and all the other issues.
I said “NO! You need to follow MY SCHEDULE or I will call the By-Law Officer again!”
My landlord agreed fast, because he was worried that I was a smart tenant who knows my rights and he can’t treat me like crap or I will call the by-laws department again!
Tenants if you have any problems don’t even waste your time to call your landlord. They are cheap and stingy and don’t care about you and your children at all!
Don’t waste time…call the by-laws department directly and they will come, you let them in, and you show them all the potential problems.
Then, the fight is between by-laws and your landlord, not you and your landlord.
And landlords get scared when the government is involved and will respect you and fear you for know how to protect your rights! They also know if they get fined the government will collect it.
Tenants Can Call By-Laws Directly And They Will Force Your Landlord To Make Repairs Or Get Charged Thousands of Dollars
Good landlords who take care of their rental properties don’t need to worry. But if you have a bad landlord you can call by-laws directly and make your landlord scared and obey your every command!
How Can You Contact Your Local By-Laws Department?
Just call your city or town. And ask the receptionist to put you through to “the by-law department”. It’s easy and they are excellent!
Ontario Tenants – Bad Landlords Are Out There But You Can Protect Yourself!
Ontario Rent Increase Guideline 2017 Set at 1.5%
Monday, December 12th, 2016
Ontario Landlords Can Raise The Rent By 1.5% in 2017
Experienced and successful landlords know the importance of owning safe, attractive, well-maintained rental properties. With great properties landlords can attract good tenants and are on your way to running a successful rental business.
Maintaining and improving properties can be costly. The prices of contractors, plumbers, electricians and building materials keep rising. Purchasing things to make your tenants happy can also add up. Improvements such as replacing windows and doors to help save heating costs, adding new outside lights to create a more secure environment, and buying the latest energy efficient appliances can be a challenge for small landlords on a tight budget.
How Much Can Landlords Raise the Rent in 2017?
According to the Ministry of Housing, the province of Ontario has set the 2017 rent increase guideline at 1.5%
What is the Rent Increase Guideline?
This is a question many new landlords ask us. The rent increase guideline is the maximum amount of money a landlord can raise a tenant’s rent. If you want to raise it more than the guideline you have to get approved by an adjudicator at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
How is the Rent Increase Guideline Calculated?
It is created with information contained in the Ontario Consumer Price Index.Most of the information is gathered by Statistics Canada which measures inflation.
What Was the Rent Increase Guideline for 2016?
In 2016 Ontario landlords could raise the rent by 2.0%
Are All Ontario Rental Properties Subject to the Rent Increase Guideline?
No, not all. For example you are not covered by it if your rental property is vacant, is social housing, was first occupied after November 1st, 1991 or is a commercial unit.
Ontario Landlords Can Raise the Rent by 1.5% in 2017
Are you going to raise the rent? Remember to follow the Landlord and Tenant Board rules if you are which includes using proper forms and giving proper notice.
A Typical Day at the Landlord and Tenant Board
Saturday, April 23rd, 2011April, 2011
It’s 9:00am on a sunny Tuesday. Landlords, tenants, and agents are lined up to sign in to the attendance record at the Landlord and Tenant Board for their hearings. (more…)
Tenant gravy train: Levy
Saturday, November 20th, 2010Handouts, 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
