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Ontario - Bad Tenants

invst4profit

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That depends- It`s all politically motivated.

Although most landlords have heard the horror stories about the Ontario LTB any landlord that has not dealt with a bad tenant is not likely to believe all they hear. There are two sides to every story and the Ontario tenants associations are quite vocal.
Many landlords that have not had a bad experience believe by treating tenants well there should not be problems and tend to hold some landlords responsible for there problems with the LTB.
One bad tenant usually changes there opinions pretty fast though.
Bottom line is you will not get agreement with in a group such as REIN to take action. Individual landlords are forced to act alone for the most part by contacting the appropriate political representatives.
 

MrHamilton

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QUOTE (EdRenkema @ Apr 8 2009, 07:10 PM) Dead link, could you resend the article?
Thanks

Hi Ed, The link worked for me. Try searching the site for this article:

"Newtonville home all but destroyed by tenants"

Cheers,
Erwin
 

billf

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Hi,

This is sickening, how can the police not charge for the willful damage of the property. How did it go on for a year? I would be calling the Childrens Aid.... not taking the garbage out for a year, that is dangerous to childrens health and the public health as well. I would not believe it unless I saw the footage.

Bill F.
 

Mike Milovick

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QUOTE (invst4profit @ Apr 8 2009, 03:27 PM) Unfortunately this happens all to often to landlords in Ontario.

http://newsdurhamregion.com/news/clarington/article/123419

Yep. That`s why I rent to students. Never have something like this occur at a student place. Never. At least not in Waterloo.

I have transitioned townhouse complexes in Waterloo from residential rental to student housing. Prior to the students moving in, cops were on site dealing with domestics regularly. Same experience in Guelph. When I show regular residential, ever twenty or so showings I get surprised by dogs. One of the townhouses, now predominantly student rental on Sunnydale in Waterloo, had the highest per capita police calls in THE REGION - prior to the students moving in.

I know the link is not typical of all landlording experiences. But good way to mitigate that risk is to rent to students - where your rental area allows for it. Students aren`t perfect, but I sleep well at night knowing the above could never occur at one of my properties.

Mike
 

selewis

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hmm... watched the newslink video... would have been nice if that was all our tenants had done to our place. i think you guys need to see these pictures. and these are just a taste of the rest of the unit (which did include dog poops as well)...

http://community.webshots.com/album/570895637SFWgkm

yes, this is one of my places... any would-be landlords in ontario, take note!

nice guys... on meds... we didn`t know it till it was too late... off meds = violent tendencies

yes, we evicted them, and yes, the tribunal ordered money to us (not as much as the repairs ended up costing)... but these guys are on disability... so i`m going to get these repair costs back, how?

discouraged from landlording yet? i`m still doing it and loving it. but go in with eyes open.
 

invst4profit

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yes, we evicted them, and yes, the tribunal ordered money to us (not as much as the repairs ended up costing)... but these guys are on disability... so I`m going to get these repair costs back, how?

discouraged from landlording yet? I`m still doing it and loving it. but go in with eyes open.



Take them to small claims court. With the tribunal settlement in hand you will win. The small claims court ruling will follow them for 6 years. Eventually they may work and you will get compensation. At 6 years you may apply to renew settlement for another 6 years. The settlement will haunt them for the rest of there natural lives if you wish. Sweet revenge.
 

housedoc

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QUOTE (selewis @ Apr 9 2009, 06:48 PM) hmm... watched the newslink video... would have been nice if that was all our tenants had done to our place. i think you guys need to see these pictures. and these are just a taste of the rest of the unit (which did include dog poops as well)...

http://community.webshots.com/album/570895637SFWgkm

yes, this is one of my places... any would-be landlords in ontario, take note!

nice guys... on meds... we didn`t know it till it was too late... off meds = violent tendencies

yes, we evicted them, and yes, the tribunal ordered money to us (not as much as the repairs ended up costing)... but these guys are on disability... so i`m going to get these repair costs back, how?

discouraged from landlording yet? i`m still doing it and loving it. but go in with eyes open.

Frankly, the video didn`t look nearly as bad as your pictures.
But what do you expect if you take a marginal property and fill it with marginal tenants? They may cash flow nicely until.......
A dumpster full of garbage, some minor repairs and paint is part of the cost of doing that kind of business, no?
I doubt this happens nearly as much with higher-end properties, stringent screening and lower ROI.
 

housingrental

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housedoc = correct

QUOTE (housedoc @ Apr 11 2009, 09:09 AM) Frankly, the video didn`t look nearly as bad as your pictures.
But what do you expect if you take a marginal property and fill it with marginal tenants? They may cash flow nicely until.......
A dumpster full of garbage, some minor repairs and paint is part of the cost of doing that kind of business, no?
I doubt this happens nearly as much with higher-end properties, stringent screening and lower ROI.
 

thejules

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While this is very disturbing & disappointing story. The article leaves alot of questions unanswered. Why did the process take 14 months? What process did the landlords serve to the tenants. More importantly what screening did the landlords do prior to the tenants moving in. What type of a written agreement did they sign?

I have found over the last 8 years, that 90% of landlording is properly & throughly screening the applicants. If they don`t have sufficient room for rent on their credit bureau & their job and landlord references don`t check out, then rent to somebody else. They`re all polite when they`re looking to rent your property!

I recently just finished an eviction process at the LTB & the tenants didn`t attend a single hearing. They also applied, with the assistance of legal aid, for a motion to set aside the eviction order. And then they still didn`t show up. So the adjudicator granted my original order and when I attended the unit for an inspection, I found that they were gone. I had my unit deemed to be abandoned. The process took three months from the time of the first filing. But them is the breaks. I rented to these people for 5 years. And it was the last 6 months of their tenancy that went for a poop!

On a side note, make sure that your insurance coverage includes sewer back up coverage. About week prior to this occurrence, I called my insurance agent to acquire insurance for a new purchase. At the time the agent asked me if I wanted sewer back up coverage. I said of course I do. The agent said the reason he asked was that some of my properties didn`t have it. SO I insisted that he review all my properties policies to ensure that I have sewer back up coverage on all of them. Then a week later, after my eviction & the evicted tenants abandoning my property, I went in and found that the sewer backed up! There was brown water all over. The insurance company`s contractors are replacing the washroom in the apartment, the plumbing & duct work in the basement. And the furnace & hot water tank. And they are replacing the flooring & painting in the apartment. So sometimes we are lucky enough to have the circumstances happen to our benefit. After 5 years of renting to the same people, we were planning on replacing flooring & painting anyways. Now we`re getting an completely updated and rennovated property to rent out!

The moral of the story. There isn`t one, just do what your supposed to do, when your supposed to do it. Then you`ll always get lucky.
 

Al Verwey

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The other thing that I would add is to make sure that you or your property manager does quarterly checks of the smoke alarms and furnace filters. This should be a term of your lease and it gives you a chance to see how the tenants are caring for the property.

Al Verwey
Penta V Holdings
Newmarket, ON
 

invst4profit

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Although proper screening of applicants is one of the more common mistakes new landlords make we should not assume the landlord in question is at fault in any way for this situation. Certainly not for the excessive time it took to evict
Bad tenants do slip through the cracks and landlords do make mistakes however the blame in this case falls squarely on the LTB and on the low life legal aid advocates that troll the halls of the LTB.. It took 14 months because the landlord had no support from a system designed to take landlord rights away.

This landlord repetadly tried to evict and each time the tenant had the full support of the unscruplus legal aid and the anti landlord/pro tenant LTB blocking there attempts to evict.

We, as landlords, should rally behind other landlords and point the finger of blame where it belongs.
 

JoeRagona

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I`m going to weigh in on this as a fairly new landlord.

I always ask for criminal checks as part of my due dilgence. I have had many potentially good tenants refuse this as an `invasion of privacy` and so be it. To me, its like using the REIN filter...some of those great deals may fall through, but you will end up with one that is even better.

In my limited experience of doing this, I filtered out one professional tenant in my third `land-lording` month. I know this because the name is on a do not rent list now.

Just my two cents.
 

invst4profit

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Congratulations on your quality screening.

I am about to begin the screening of a potential applicant that I suspect to be similar to the tenants sited in this thread. I have heard they are being evicted from there present location.
Apparently they have done a considerable amount of damage and have not paid any rent for a long time.
A mother and daughter rented a house and proceed to move in 6 more people.

This should be interesting if they are in fact the same people.
 
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