Tenant Moving in 3 Months Later

[donksky]

Hello,
In the tight student rental market (but a higher regular tenant vacancy rate) of Sudbury, some students are starting to rent in June 1 but not physically moving in until Sept. If I like some student applicant(s), can I offer them a lower rent from June to August while they`re not moved in yet & then full rent from Sept. onwards or is this going to look like an illegal (huge) rent increase on paper/lease agreement? Say if full rent is $725 +hydro for 2 adults, can I offer that they pay $600 in June-August? can I withold the key until they move in & that`s when I require them to have the hydro switched to their name & this ensures they don`t move in before then?? (I`d shoulder hydro of $20 per month in meantime??) --I`m in Toronto 4 hours away & haven`t found a decent property mgr. yet. thanks for ur input.

 

[invst4profit]

In Kingston students sign a 1 year lease the same as all tenants. Is Barrie not the same ?
No do not offer a reduced rent for the summer, if they want the unit you should charge full rent.
Make sure you have parent co-signers for each student.
You must give the tenant the key at the start of the lease if they are paying the rent.
Make sure the utilities are in there name and you have cash in hand for first and last before you pass over the key.

 

[housingrental]

I like Greg`s post.

I would re your que3stion on rent discounting (and this isn`t standard practice in most areas)

In Ontario you can offer rent discounts however only up to a certain amount or the discounted rent will be considered the actual rent.
I forget the exact criteria off of the top of my head - you should check with LTB before structuring this - I think it`s something along the lines of discounted rent must be a)Not more than 8% of year long lease rate (ie 1 month free rent in a year max) AND b) Not spread over more than a few months (ie so if you spread a small amount of rent off of 6 months of rent even if total discount over 6 months less than 8% of yearly rent it would be an illegal discount - the actual rent tenant owes after those 6 months of discounts would be the same as the discounted 6 months of rent)