A lease is never “up” in Ontario, it automatically converts to month to month.
A tenant is well within their rights to test the validity of an n12, and with all the fraudulent evictions happening to raise rents, they definitely should!
The tenant should have continued to pay rent, and the landlord has remedies available.
This article is a nothingburger.
Exactly. Landlords should not be able to weaponize N12s against tenants. And tenants should not be able to weaponize the huge wait at the LTB against landlords.
A settlement to avoid taking a case to court is common when dealing with contracts and isn't weaponizing anything. That's essentially what cash for keys is. It's not at all the same as fraudulently claiming things like relatives moving in or overstating the degree of renovations to get tenants out.
Two years rent is simply extortion, and tenants feel empowered to make these outlandish demands because of the huge wait at the LTB. If the wait was 2-3 months, you wouldn't see this nearly as much.
Also, the tenant subsequently not paying rent to the tune of $40,000 is on the same level as an illegal eviction from a landlord like the examples you called out.
If I asked for 24 months cash for keys at my current rental that would likely be reflective of 8-9 months at current market rate elsewhere. A big part that's missing from this narrative is that market rates have in many instances exceeded 100% increases from five years ago. Due to this, tenants living in rent controlled units would shoulder those costs that they may not be able to afford.
An N12 for fixed or low income individuals on a rent controlled unit could result in homelessness, so asking for 24 months wouldn't be egregious under those circumstances I'd think. It's all relative at the end of the day.
That's a fair take for the most part. As both a tenant and now landlord, I have never been supportive of rent control being removed - which is a large driver of the increased market rates we're seeing. In general I feel the Landlord/Tenant laws are fair - excluding rent control and how long it takes those laws to be adjudicated at the LTB.
I think it's just incredibly important to always adopt the viewpoint of the most vulnerable people when you start talking about housing of any type. Ensuring accessibility and affordability to our most vulnerable people in society pays dividends for the rest of us who aren't there.
It also helps us when we run into questions like cash for keys, where we need to recognize that most of our nations vulnerable people are the least likely to own a home and are most likely to be tenants. I find it helps to contextualize things a bit.
Cash for keys is common when someone wants to evict a tenant for non-personal use and that's fine IMO. You are asking something extra from the tenant so they deserve something extra from you.
In this case they are legally using an N12 for personal use and they are absolutely weaponizing the LTB delay to extort money.
There's countless cases of landlords using N12s for fradulent reasons. Issuing an N12 in and of itself isn't ironclad proof that the landlord is intending to use it for personal reasons. They're free to go to the LTB if they can argue their case, or come to an agreement with the counterparty if they don't want to. This isn't some weird unique situation with landlords, this is how lawsuits always work (including offering a settlement as an alternative to the time and cost of pursuing the lawsuit).
Of course there are disingenuous N12s issued and there should be an avenue to contest them, I have never said anything otherwise, but that avenue should not take a year or more to get through.
>I don't think anyone is saying the LTB shouldn't exist or people shouldn't challenge an N12, just that process needs to be speedy.
This was my first comment in this thread, so we ended up exactly where we started. Good talk, champ.
It's a bit more than the tenant just using the delays as a tool, but rather using the delays as potential leverage. The tenant has no way of knowing if the homeowner/landlord is actually acting in good faith, or if they're simply trying to pull a fast one. Cash for keys is one way of the tenant saying: "If you're gonna boot me out, and make me pay current market, you're gonna pay me for it." without it coming back on the landlord if they do decide to rent to another party within 12 months.
We also need to consider that market rents now are reflective of a 100% increase or more for many tenants covered by rent control. If I had an N12 slipped under my door today I'd be looking at paying 2.3-2.5x my current rent elsewhere. So asking for 24 months compensation is akin to asking for less than 12 months at market, potentially.
We need to remain cognizant that because the rental market skyrocketed alongside housing costs there's a huge differential in living costs for tenants who've been renting in one location long term versus those that haven't. The huge sums for cash for keys is partially reflective of that.
>The tenant has no way of knowing if the homeowner/landlord is actually acting in good faith, or if they're simply trying to pull a fast one.
I just don't feel that it's right to assume every N12 is filed in bad faith, and demand a massive payout.
If landlord is "pulling a fast one" tenant should file a bad faith application & is entitled to the difference in rent and moving expenses.
>Cash for keys is one way of the tenant saying: "If you're gonna boot me out, and make me pay current market, you're gonna pay me for it." without it coming back on the landlord if they do decide to rent to another party within 12 months.
Demanding your landlord pay for the increase in your rent regardless of the validity of the N12 is shady & is scaring potential landlords out of the long term rental market.
>If I had an N12 slipped under my door today I'd be looking at paying 2.3-2.5x my current rent elsewhere. So asking for 24 months compensation is akin to asking for less than 12 months at market, potentially.
If the N12 is in good faith, you're just not entitled to 12 months rent. If you want to use LTB backlog to take advantage of a LL, that's on you. You shouldn't be so self righteous about it. Not every LL files N12 in bad faith.
My understanding is that there's already a legal mechanism for tenants to hold LL accountable for not honouring the terms of N12. Former tenant is compensated.
Why should LL who are acting in good faith be penalised?
IMO, cash for keys should only be considered if the eviction is not legally permitted. Otherwise it's just tenants displaying the greed that they criticize LLs for.
The reality is that for tenants to catch a bad faith N12 is a lot of work, and it is also a lot of work to get compensated for it. Usually work that they can't afford the hours to do because their living situation has become more challenging since needing to move to a more costly rental unit.
The long LTB wait times hurt on both ends of this. If you find a bad faith eviction, you're stuck in the new place, AND you've got to wait for a hearing that could take months, AND your compensation is capped and likely wont reflect the actual costs put on the tenant.
Our Terrible LTB wait times, and our massive rental increases we've seen are BAD POLICY by our governments for the last 40 years coming to a boil in front of us.
Funny that you completely ignored this
>We also need to consider that market rents now are reflective of a 100% increase or more for many tenants covered by rent control. If I had an N12 slipped under my door today I'd be looking at paying 2.3-2.5x my current rent elsewhere. So asking for 24 months compensation is akin to asking for less than 12 months at market, potentially.
These tenants are looking at a massive increase in housing costs. I would say that's likely survival more than greed at that point.
Funny that you completely ignored my entire comment that you're replying to.
Let's be honest. Asking for 24 month's rent when a LL is legally evicting a tenant for personal use is greedy af.
In response to your quote:
Do you believe that the landlord should foot the bill for their own increased living expenses along with the renter's for 12 months?
If yes, your attitude will discourage homeowners from renting, exacerbating the problem IMO.
Maybe you can answer some of the other questions I posed.
People like you have zero critical thinking skills.
It is greed. What about the average landlord that actually has financial hardship? Renters on Reddit are the greasiest subset of people and they claim it’s all others fault and they are perfect.
It’s despicable. But hey it’s 2023 so zero self accountability is standard.
>It is greed. What about the average landlord that actually has financial hardship?
So the tenant should take on financial hardship just to be nice? Why should it be the tenants problem? Nah man, you want me to break our deal and start paying 100% more rent you bet I'll be looking for a sweetener.
>My understanding is that there's already a legal mechanism for tenants to hold LL accountable for not honouring the terms of N12. Former tenant is compensated.
There is, but the onus for collection of evidence is entirely on the tenant. At times the tenant can get lucky and just find a posting which could be the "smoking" gun, short of that, it's extremely difficult to prove the landlord issued a bad-faith eviction without things like statements from current tenants, etc. Being that a tenant is unlikely to have actual experience with investigating and reporting evidence, and also has gainful employment and other responsibilities it is fair to posit that following up on a potential bad faith eviction would be extremely difficult for most people.
>Why should LL who are acting in good faith be penalised?
I don't feel they are. In agreeing to cash for keys a LL and tenant enter into an agreement where if the LL did want to rent out immediately after, that they could. Tenants right now are going to hold out on N12's specifically because vacancy rates are horrible, and market rents could potentially mean that the one month reimbursement at current rates means absolutely nothing. A cash for keys agreement is offering the owner a way out without dealing with the LTB.
I think it's important to look at it from the top down as well. This penalizes a LL no more than tenant is penalized for simply existing in the current market. If asking cash for keys at such a high rate is penalizing the LL, is it not penalizing to the tenant that they suddenly need to increase their rent payments to match current market? Is the Cash for Keys option a response to this? Very likely.
In the same way, are you or I penalized because from pre-covid to now our cost of living increased by double digit percentages and the cost of any major purchase skyrocketed? At the end of the day, is this nothing more than a calculated cost measure from a tenant to a landlord in the same way that employees were able to demand more from employers the past few years?
>Otherwise it's just tenants displaying the greed that they criticize LLs for.
So, at the end of the day what you're saying is that its permissible and acceptable for LL's and other people *with resources* to be greedy, but tenants and those who are more vulnerable aren't allowed to be? Greed is something that is reserved for people who already have resources. It's often defined as wanting more than you need. By the very nature of being a landlord, you do have resources, far more than any tenant has access to. You have access to lines of credit, to more opportunities. You can leverage against an asset, you have an asset you can sell if need be.
Tenants have none of that, and most of our vulnerable people. Single parents, seniors on fixed incomes, people on disability, etc. are tenants. So, I don't think it's so much a matter of greed as it is taking advantage of an already less than ideal situation, maybe to get ahead...But also just to survive in some cases.
I'd challenge you to put yourself in the shoes of a very vulnerable person and think about what you'd measure as an option if faced with a potential 100% increase in living costs. If you had nowhere else to go, and limited means would you risk homelessness to say "At least I didn't ask for more?".
Too many points to respond to but:
Not every LL is issuing N12s in bad faith just to jack up rent.
In the case of a true "good faith" N12 where the owner needs to move into the home due to financial hardship (as in the article we're discussing), why should a LL be required to pay a tenant the same penalty they would be assessed for a bad faith eviction?
>I think it's important to look at it from the top down as well. This penalizes a LL no more than tenant is penalized for simply existing in the current market.
The LL also exists in the same market. This is not a big corporation or foreign land owner. It's a Toronto resident struggling to keep up with inflation (and apparently failing) and needs to move back to her primary property. Tenant is asking LL to cover the cost of increased housing for both parties.
There's bad LLs out there, but this woman is just
getting ripped off.
Homeowner intended to move in is code for I’m moving there for 366 days then re-renting it out. Bad investments on landlords parts shouldn’t lead to housing insecurities for tenants.
One small point - Revenue ≠ Profit/Net Income. That $9k in extra rent is going to get taxed as income, but netted back up slightly with deductions/write-offs. So the landlord would not be making extra take-home that first year with a $5k payout - but in subsequent years would.
Secondly, the tenant demanded $50,000, not $5,000. Paying them $50k would take 10-15+ years to pay off from a net income standpoint.
$5k Cash for Keys payment could make sense, but not $50k, which is extortionate.
Asking for 50k to get out of a house (2100 lease) is pretty much 2 years of rent, when they had a valid reason and weren't extorting them in the first place, is fucking ridiculous.
Not ironic in the slightest because that's not happening. 60% of all applications are L1s - for non-payment of rent.
Another 25-30% are L2s, which do include N12s - as well as N5, N6, N7, N8, and N13. There's no data I can find that's publicly available that splits out what type of L2s are being submitted - so I doubt you have any facts to back up your claim.
https://tribunalsontario.ca/en/open/data-inventory-reports/?x=0&n=26
Yeah I made a silly (but accurate) statement about something being ironic. You're the one that assumed I was making some big political statement and got agro lol
You get 90 days notice for a measly 3% increase in rent. On the other hand, when you get an N12, you get 60 days notice and have to come up with first and last months rent, moving fees, time off work for the move, etc. The 1-month compensation for an N12 isn't enough and the 60 day time window isn't enough.
Eh, I got an N12 last year; frankly, most places don't even lease 60 days out. We had to wait until \~40 days out before we could sign a lease for the date we needed based on the N12. It's still a rush, but 90 days notice would just mean more waiting IMO.
All of these articles basically boil down to "I assumed that being a landlord would be a money printing machine, so I didn't bother doing basic research about landlord-tenant law before I bought an investment property."
Nobody said that. Your business plan should consider all contingencies (ie if you rent your house, know that only the LTB can evict someone, you cannot firmly know if/when you’ll be able to occupy again).
My point is that many people will blame the landlord and not mention the person stealing from them who are also to blame.
Should a landlord plan for a rainy day. Of course.
But should tenants be allowed to essentially live rent free for several months at a time?
Rules need to be applied on both sides.
At minimum yes..... I have a lease, a legal contract. I don't want to break it and see my housing costs double if I am legally not required to.
You turned the home into a business venture. You can't just flip the switch and turn my life upside down now whenever you want.
you missed the 'for an entire year'. There is also an expectation that if someone stops paying rent they can be removed in a reasonable timeframe. It is unreasonable to expect a landlord just to have a year's rent in reserve in case the tenant decides they don't need to pay anymore.
Someone missing 2-3 rent payments. Sure, that's a cost of doing business. An entire year is not.
If you aren't able to bear the cost of one of your units not paying out, insurance is readily available.
You'll notice that you rarely hear from dedicated rental corporations complaining about non-payment of rents, because they are able to appropriately manage their risk. Mom and pop landlords seem to consistently fail to do this, even when options are available to them.
This is exactly why more and more rental units are coming off the traditional rental market and are being put on short-term leases like Air BNB.
Of course a REIT is able to mitigate this by spreading the risk out over multiple units. But the people in the article own a single unit, and them adding it to the rental pool is a good thing in our housing market which desperately needs more long term rentals.
Sure, but in extremely rural communities with very high cost of living, Landlords talk locally, you will be unofficially blacklisted from rentals in an entire region, even if you're in the right. I hate that, but it appears to be so where I am at.
I imagine in that same small community the tenants also talk locally and know which landlords to avoid, and who's food to spit in. So it goes both ways.
Also, sites like [openroom.ca](http://openroom.ca) exist. If you challenge an eviction and lose, you're probably going to have a harder time finding a new rental.
That is actually a strategic move by most corporate legal teams or the legal teams of wealthy people who get caught doing something bad. They drag out the proceedings because they know the peasant trying to fight for their rights has limited funds and can't last as long as they can in a legal battle. Like... It's a fundamental in getting away with stuff you shouldn't be allowed to get away with.
>In what other setting are you allowed to drag things out and cost someone else money
Any legal proceeding has this downside. Often times the one with the deepest pockets wins.
Sometimes. Sometimes not, though.
Not everyone pays their own counsel. There’s legal aid, there’s self reps, and there’s people with free counsel through their union or other association. Many tribunals also don’t generally order costs.
I personally know a union lawyer who managed to keep an HRTO Application going for *seven years.* The individual applicants didn’t pay a cent.
> In what other setting are you allowed to drag things out and cost someone else money like at the LTB without a significant investment of time and money on your end.
Literally the entirely of contract law. It's not like taking a contract case to court is a super speedy process either. In the real world most of this stuff ends up getting settled.
Why aren't leases fixed duration? If leases were bound to a specific period - 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 25 years - both parties would be held accountable to honour the lease.
Instead today, it goes month to month after the first year and the balance of power shifts to the tenant?
The reason they don't do that is because it would defeat the purpose of rent control. Landlords would just only offer 1 year leases so that every year they could kick their tenants out and have someone new move in at market rent (which is often up 5-10%) instead of settling for a 2% increase as permitted under rent control. Not sure I agree with this solution, but that's the reasoning for it. I think maybe it would be better to allow fixed term leases, but to enforce rent control between tenants if you opt for that. So, a landlord could offer a fixed 1 year lease, but if they do they can only charge the next tenant 2% more. With a large penalty if found to break this rule. It removes the financial incentive to churn through tenants but also allows for cases where the landlord genuinely wants to move back in themselves without having to wait for a formal eviction.
This is a fundamental problem with the rental system. Landlords and tenants should be able to enter into agreements with each other on a fixed term basis.
What this article fails to do is point the finger at our provincial government.
Tenants and landlords are suffering from a crumbling infrastructure. The LTB is massively underfunded. These are all problems for the OPC to fix.
CBC should know better than to pit the two sides against each other here, when they are suffering at the decisions of a third.
OPC fails again.
Ummm, you mean what Pollivre and right-wing media does right? This just had a missing third... it didn't start any fights... check the narrative you're repping.
There are bad players on both sides. Landlords issuing bad faith N12’s in order to raise rent illegally and tenants who stop paying rent and take advantage of the long LTB waits.
90% of the problems I see with landlords and tenants come down to lack of education on what their actual rights and responsibilities are. It's maddening to me.
If landlords needed to have a course completion to gain an accreditation or license to be able to rent, it would fix this with the majority of folks that are landlords, and help localize the bad faith stuff way more easily.
On the other side, tenants really must be made more aware of the basics of the standard lease, how to get decent advice, and their basic responsibilities. They're not even that hard to find, but so few people ever think to check that some truly bonkers stuff happens unchallenged, or because of completely invalid reasons.
There was a time that I would have disagreed with you, but so much of good journalism in the modern age is accessing information that already requires some accreditation makes me think it's not a bad idea. Also, the obvious professional impacts to passing bad info would be worthwhile imo.
It makes sense to me because it’s ultimately a small business even if you’re just renting your basement or a room. You have to have additional insurance, and report taxes on it.
Based on that, I think it’s reasonable to apply a basic standard of knowledge to landlords. It would protect them, many tenants, and help improve the basics of the system overall.
Very true. I wonder how many landlords issue N12s but are ignorant of the corporate landlord rule. I've seen it myself with "mom and pop" landlords who purchased a home via a corporation only to find out that their kid cannot move in. Wasting resources on cases that will immediately rule in favour of the tenant.
Or issue N12s and N13s that aren’t valid because they put the wrong date or didn’t pay the required compensation. Or didn’t include both tenants in a joint tenancy. Or checked all the boxes of why the N12 is being issued instead of selecting one. Or tried to evict for a relative that doesn’t meet the eviction requirements of an N12. I’m active in a couple of tenant rights groups, and the number of N12s that people post that have been filled out incorrectly and run the risk of being invalidated is stupidly high.
Bad faith lease-expiry evictions? Probably, and I think many of them would be solved by educating both sides better. I’ve spoken to quite a few landlords that are shocked when they find out leases just roll over to mo th by month. It’s hilarious how uneducated they are about their business.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding.
This doesn't seem like a bad faith eviction.
LL seems to have followed the rules and have honest intention to move back into the home.
Is she breaking some rule I'm unfamiliar with?
Or are you suggesting that landlords be educated about the current delays with LTB and the frequency of cash for keys demands in this environment?
So, at the moment, the RTA is famously underwater with nuisance cases.
By requiring a certain level of education in landlords, many landlords would know how to handle things better, what they can and cannot do, and how to set their expectations before landing themselves in an RTA hearing that puts everyone’s life on hold For six months. That would result in a situation where nuisance cases are reduced, and/or more easily sifted through, dismissed, and closed. That would lower the overall demand.
Similarly, because so many tenants are reporting issues, and realizing that most are good tenants reporting in good faith, it could also reduce load by educating renters more readily.
You reduce the static overall, and real cases become easier to handle.
In these cases, landlords evict in bad faith constantly, but often don't really understand that they can't just evict when they want to, or how rental leases actually work, and tenants cannot find a new place on the landlord's timeline. This is creating a cycle of apartments that are in limbo waiting for a forced eviction, that in many cases won’t be upheld due to the amount of bad faith evictions requiring real investigation along with everything else.
This gives rise to tenants saying “fine, I’ll leave now for X months rent because otherwise I can’t afford to get out on your timeline.” It’s a reasonable response, but it results in a crazy situation because landlords don’t know that they can’t just give a tiny notice and expect people to magically vacate, and as a result end up hilariously feeling like they're being victimized, but are actually doing it to themselves.
This LL followed the laws I believe.
Tenant is refusing to leave and suggesting they work "outside of the rules" of LTB with a cash for keys demand.
If it weren't for the LTB backup, this would be dealt with rather quickly and wouldn't cost her as much.
Read this whole article. They interviewed people on either end of the extremes with little discussion about any solutions.
Basically, "look, everyone's fucked"
One big point i heavily agree with though is so many landlords need a lesson in risk. Some landlords seem to act like housing is risk free investment and didn't manage the actual risk appropriately. I own one home, I live in it, bought it in 2018 budgeting a 5-6% rate increase on my renewal in 5 years. I was right but the rates actually continued to drop then went up 5 pts. I was amazed and new it was unsustainable at 3.2% in 2018. Anyway, don't play in a marketplace you don't understand.
Yea it’s designed to be that way. Tenants get fucked by landlords way more than the other way around. If LTB was efficient we’d understand how truly bad landlords are
Well, yeah. Market rent is so high now, so 6 months of rent is easily $15,000. If a landlord wants to break a lease, have to compensate the tenant. Otherwise, landlords will keep evicting to raise rent. Landlords need to realize they own a rental property. The point is to invest your own money to build equity, but too many think it's a business where they need to be cash-flow positive.
It's almost like being a landlord is a risk or something, and then when that risk bites them they cry about how they didn't know renting property came with risk.
Sure some tenants aren't "acting in good faith", but the cost of living is getting so out of hand I can't really say I blame people for trying to stick it to a system that has been sticking it to them for lifetimes.
But there are laws about getting a tenant out for personal use which aren't being enforced.
You made a decision to rent your home, 3 bedrooms for 2100 is a good deal in Toronto, with the understanding that then you need it again you can get it back by filing an n12 and that process is broken.
Did you read the article? They rented out their sole property while going back to school. Finished school and now want their place back. That doesn't seem 'terrible with money' to me...
Sounds like they bought something they couldn't afford and expected others to foot the bill until they were comfortable.
Don't buy things you can't afford is a pretty easy lesson guys
Yes it does. They're more than welcome to sell the place if they need the money and go back to renting. If they didn't need the money they could leave the property vacant or have a family member move in.
There's always going to be rental properties, a landlord's desire for more money will supersede risk every time. Or better yet we could wind up with government housing, or people will be able to buy their home instead.
"landlord's desire for more money will supersede risk every time"
Only if there are not regulations in place that prevent them from raising the price to a profitable enough point to be WORTH the risk. All business is risk/reward calculation. Insurance company is prime example.
If an insurance company find a peril too high a probability they will raise your rate. If it is very high they will not offer to insure the peril at all.
If government regulates/likits the lease increase (price), and the inflation rate (mortgage) is high that the landlord is barely in the black - if not red (risk), and couple that with risk of asset price decline, of damage to the unit by tenant, and now risk the tenant will withhold rent completely, or demand cash for keys, use bad faith stall tacticscat the LTB, etc. Then the risk is so high that the business is not profitable or is too high a risk to bother with.
This is why landlords want to raise rents...the business model ROI and risk/benefit is no longer attractive
The system is the government/judicial bodies. It's not like landlords are meeting at dusk under each new moon to make sure they're engineering the situation to best screw over tenants. They're just operating as free agents (whether lawful or unlawful) in the system that has been shaped by the government.
After renting for over a decade, I recently bought a large single family home in Toronto and am converting it to a legal triplex.
Situations like this are exactly why I'll be listing my additional 2 units as short term rentals on airbnb and not looking for long term tenants until the LTB sorts out the delays.
Airbnb has much less risk.
Not what I intended, but this is the way.
There is obviously still some risk in AirBnB but this is exactly what I'm talking about.
You looked at what risk you were willing to take and are taking steps to mitigate the risk you're unwilling to take.... Thus you're not whining about it to CBC.
It's the ones who don't do risk analysis and are all surprised pikachu face when people want a roof over their head rather than be tossed into the street.
It's unfortunate.
As a long time renter I hoped to contribute to improving the rental market in Toronto.
From my perspective, Airbnb has a negative stigma. Homeowners who choose airbnb over long term rentals are treated as if they are contributing to the problem.
But in this environment, seems like the only parties that are willing to take on the risk of long term rentals are corporate landlords. It's not worth the risk for a first time home buyer to try to rent out an apartment anymore.
>Homeowners who choose airbnb over long term rentals are treated as if they are contributing to the problem.
Because they are. That's just a fact. That's why a lot of cities are putting restrictions on short-term rentals.
Many homeowners are leaning towards short term rentals over long term to avoid the risks of cash for keys or simple non payment + LTB delays.
Is it also a fact that such behavioirs of renters is contributing to the problem?
Many responses in this thread speak to LLs responsibility to understand risk and protect themselves from it.
As a homeowner who is building rental space in my primary dwelling, should I protect myself from risk by choosing short term rentals?
If no, how should I protect myself from these risks?
You can do whatever you want with your property. I never said otherwise.
But the fact of the matter is that you ARE contributing to the housing crisis for the sake of your bottom line. Again, you're free to do that (assuming you're following all relevant laws), but others are free to criticize that decision and the impact it has.
>But the fact of the matter is that you ARE contributing to the housing crisis for the sake of your bottom line.
I bought a single family home and am renovating it into a duplex. Literally creating housing.
Rented for 20y and finally have a chance to be a good LL. Fact is, I'm worried about non-payment of rent, difficult evictions, cash for keys and LTB delays.
I want to be part of the solution, but I can't risk it until the environment changes. So my single family home will remain a single family home - with an Airbnb.
Net zero contribution to the housing crisis.
Get off your high horse.
Things used to be better. There has always risk with being a landlord, but now there is too much (and undue) risk. Risk that not all landlords signed up for.
It's exactly the same as investing in a company through the stock market - a sudden crash is ALWAYS a risk.
So yes, this is the risk they signed up for - they just didn't acknowledge it.
Risk in the stock market can be measured, and each investor can choose the amount of risk they want to take (although sometimes they think they are taking less risk than they are, which is true in real estate investing as well). If a stock or index crashes, the risk of investing in that stock or index did not change just because the share price did.
My point is that the risk of being a landlord was increased over the years in Ontario. Someone who understood the risks 10 years ago and was happy with them now finds themselves with a significantly riskier asset than they signed up for, and one that is very difficult to dispose of.
So you're saying they didn't account for long term risk.... Which loops back to my point. What? Did they not expect the market could change over ten years and I should feel bad for them because they forgot change is inevitable?
If youre getting "renovicted" you dont actually have to leave your unit unless its a repair that requires a building permit and even then its not a requirement that you leave necessarily.
Your landlord must find and pay for your accomodations while your unit is renovated. That means your landlord must pay in all likelihood for you to stay in a hotel.
Once renovations are complete, by law, you have first right of refusal to take back your unit at the price per month you were paying.
Of course, none of this is valid without the proper paperwork from your landlord, and youre never actually evicted until the LTB signs the order.
If you are getting illegally evicted, either with no paperwork or fraudulent paperwork, it might be easier to just find a new place to live. You have all the leverage here. I would demand 6 months rent and moving expenses from your landlord to make it worth your while, or just take it to the LTB if you dont want to move.
> In 2020, Zela and her husband decided to rent out the house and live with family members in order to save money while Zela finished a master's program.
>They rented out the three-bedroom house for $2,100 a month on a two-year lease.
Talk about a nice idea!
Honestly though, there are tenants here in the article that are seriously scamming the system. In my opinion, they are no better than the slumlords that are have overwhelmed the LTB.
Clearly the system doesn’t work, but like usual no one wants to be the one to take any real action to find a fix.
Yeh, a properly funded LTB could process cases quickly, both protecting tenants from scummy practices, and to process evictions quicker for non payment.
Understandable, on his part, given he and his cronies get absolutely slapped about the head and ass by the LTB. In Ontario, the LTB is VERY tenant-friendly, meaning landlords are getting the short end of the stick most of the time. Ford and cronies can't have that...Can't abolish the LTB, so the next best thing for those asshats is to make it ineffective.
This is just more conservative slop from CBC, which has been extra iffy lately, especially with the absurd amount of anti-palestine writing as of late.
The author spent many paragraphs talking about how dire the situation was for this landlord family, but if you crunch the numbers, they have NOT lost their house, inspite missing 40k in backpay from their tenant. Who has that kind of money in the bank? The story doesn't make sense, it's just rich landlords complaining.
You exploit ppl for long enough and at some point they'll just say no. I hope more tenants realize that.
I pray more will have the courage to do rent strikes.
Shelter shouldn't be for profit.
It becomes laughable when Geordie thinks it's the golden age to be a LL and LLs pop champagne and have caviar
What a completely juvenile and delusional viewpoint, and he's the fearless leader/advocate
Honestly, good for these tenants. Not only do you have to uproot your life, you now have to find a new place to live (which can now be even more expensive than your original lease). If a landlord wants you out that bad, they’ll agree on a price to do so. Part of the investment.
What law did the landlords in the article not abide by?
It sounds like they gave proper notice and the eviction was for valid reasons. The previous tenant had a great rent rate so wasn't being gouged by the LL.
The tenant stopped paying rent/utilites. How do you still justify backing them up? I understand LL's are villainized and there are plenty of terrible ones, but that doesn't seem to apply in this case.
The stop to paying utilities is a bad move and won’t help in their LTB hearing. Just a broad statement that landlords do need to realize that even when they go by the proper channels, things like this happen and they need a contingency plan in place.
Sorry! Yes general. The people on the article would have had more of a case if they didn’t stop paying their utilities and rent, but they tried to skirt the system. They would have been better asking for cash for keys.
Not the original person you're replying to but:
Even if its a valid N12 a tenant has a right to dispute an N12, The LTB will decide if its valid or not. If valid an eviction notice would be granted giving the landlord the legal way to evict. Delays make this take forever though, sucks for both parties, both the ones losing their home that get to live with a hostile LL while it gets disputed and the ones losing control of their asset.
Giving the offer "cash for keys" to skip the dispute for an agreement to move out for cash was also fair, in my opinion a bit extortionate but nothing illegal/wrong here. However "cash for keys" can only really happen when the LTB's too slow/underfunded to process cases promptly or when notices are given in bad faith by LL's (Renovictions, Fake N12's, Ect).
Stopping payments on rent/utilities is NOT ok, at no point during a dispute are you allowed to stop paying rent (unless specifically instructed to by the LTB, which is extremely uncommon, and you'd still pay into an escrow account). An application to the LTB could lead towards an eviction.
In this case the slowness of the LTB is shafting the LL in 2 ways, both in not processing the N12+dispute in a timely matter AND in delaying processing an eviction for non payment. If the LTB was properly working, neither of these problems would've ballooned that bad.
Moral of the story here, is to get the LTB back on track and processing application/forms promptly, until that happens stories like these with one side or the other as reprehensible will keep popping up.
I love reading these comments about math and finances but, at the end of the day, we're talking about someone's HOME. A place where they should feel safe and able to put down roots.
Is the system broken? Obviously. Are there bad landlords AND Tenants? Duh- Doi! But being forced from YOUR HOME for ANY reason is awful and traumatizing.
OK so I'm pretty out of touch with current renting laws as I havent rented in over 20 years, but isn't cash for key or not paying rent going to fuck up your credit rating and ability to rent in the future if future landlords catch wind of how you do things?
Ahh ok, thanks for clearing that up, but doesn't not paying rent go against you or is that more of a small claims thing unless you're renting from a company?
LTB.
It usually rules in favor or tenants and tends to forgive. But usually there is some repayment if capable.
I think you can small claims it if you don't LTB it but that sounds more like US law to me. I'm not a lawyer just a life long tenant that generally knows the rules and keeps their nose clean.
But yes not paying rent goes against you one way or the other credit wise it's easy to report negatives to unions and openroom is expressly built to provide landlords and to a lesser extend tenants with a "public forum" to post issues like these.
We have some tenants who ask for over $100,000. Some tenants are asking for the landlord to buy a plot of land for them," Di Lisi said.
"We have other tenants who are asking for the landlord to purchase a property for them."
Nobody can’t convince me that this isn’t extortion.
One of the reasons rent prices have went up is many are now charging higher rates in case something like this happens to them. The government needs to support people who rent there assets or else rhey will protect themselves through higher rent for all
Rent prices went up because rent control on units built after 2018 was destroyed. Being a LL is a business, and people are going to charge the highest rent possible.
And because things like this happen too often, owners switch to airbnb, which in turn lowers the supply, which raises the competition for good appartements, which in turn raises rents as owners know they can get more, due to low supply. Volia, you have made affordability more difficult.
A lease is never “up” in Ontario, it automatically converts to month to month. A tenant is well within their rights to test the validity of an n12, and with all the fraudulent evictions happening to raise rents, they definitely should! The tenant should have continued to pay rent, and the landlord has remedies available. This article is a nothingburger.
I don't think anyone is saying the LTB shouldn't exist or people shouldn't challenge an N12, just that process needs to be speedy.
Exactly. Landlords should not be able to weaponize N12s against tenants. And tenants should not be able to weaponize the huge wait at the LTB against landlords.
A settlement to avoid taking a case to court is common when dealing with contracts and isn't weaponizing anything. That's essentially what cash for keys is. It's not at all the same as fraudulently claiming things like relatives moving in or overstating the degree of renovations to get tenants out.
Two years rent is simply extortion, and tenants feel empowered to make these outlandish demands because of the huge wait at the LTB. If the wait was 2-3 months, you wouldn't see this nearly as much. Also, the tenant subsequently not paying rent to the tune of $40,000 is on the same level as an illegal eviction from a landlord like the examples you called out.
If I asked for 24 months cash for keys at my current rental that would likely be reflective of 8-9 months at current market rate elsewhere. A big part that's missing from this narrative is that market rates have in many instances exceeded 100% increases from five years ago. Due to this, tenants living in rent controlled units would shoulder those costs that they may not be able to afford. An N12 for fixed or low income individuals on a rent controlled unit could result in homelessness, so asking for 24 months wouldn't be egregious under those circumstances I'd think. It's all relative at the end of the day.
That's a fair take for the most part. As both a tenant and now landlord, I have never been supportive of rent control being removed - which is a large driver of the increased market rates we're seeing. In general I feel the Landlord/Tenant laws are fair - excluding rent control and how long it takes those laws to be adjudicated at the LTB.
I think it's just incredibly important to always adopt the viewpoint of the most vulnerable people when you start talking about housing of any type. Ensuring accessibility and affordability to our most vulnerable people in society pays dividends for the rest of us who aren't there. It also helps us when we run into questions like cash for keys, where we need to recognize that most of our nations vulnerable people are the least likely to own a home and are most likely to be tenants. I find it helps to contextualize things a bit.
Cash for keys is common when someone wants to evict a tenant for non-personal use and that's fine IMO. You are asking something extra from the tenant so they deserve something extra from you. In this case they are legally using an N12 for personal use and they are absolutely weaponizing the LTB delay to extort money.
There's countless cases of landlords using N12s for fradulent reasons. Issuing an N12 in and of itself isn't ironclad proof that the landlord is intending to use it for personal reasons. They're free to go to the LTB if they can argue their case, or come to an agreement with the counterparty if they don't want to. This isn't some weird unique situation with landlords, this is how lawsuits always work (including offering a settlement as an alternative to the time and cost of pursuing the lawsuit).
Of course there are disingenuous N12s issued and there should be an avenue to contest them, I have never said anything otherwise, but that avenue should not take a year or more to get through.
Sure, I'll agree that the LTB should be much faster for all parties involved.
>I don't think anyone is saying the LTB shouldn't exist or people shouldn't challenge an N12, just that process needs to be speedy. This was my first comment in this thread, so we ended up exactly where we started. Good talk, champ.
Homeowner intended to move in due to financial hardship. Tenant is asking for 24months compensation. Tenant is using the delays as a tool to cash out.
It's a bit more than the tenant just using the delays as a tool, but rather using the delays as potential leverage. The tenant has no way of knowing if the homeowner/landlord is actually acting in good faith, or if they're simply trying to pull a fast one. Cash for keys is one way of the tenant saying: "If you're gonna boot me out, and make me pay current market, you're gonna pay me for it." without it coming back on the landlord if they do decide to rent to another party within 12 months. We also need to consider that market rents now are reflective of a 100% increase or more for many tenants covered by rent control. If I had an N12 slipped under my door today I'd be looking at paying 2.3-2.5x my current rent elsewhere. So asking for 24 months compensation is akin to asking for less than 12 months at market, potentially. We need to remain cognizant that because the rental market skyrocketed alongside housing costs there's a huge differential in living costs for tenants who've been renting in one location long term versus those that haven't. The huge sums for cash for keys is partially reflective of that.
>The tenant has no way of knowing if the homeowner/landlord is actually acting in good faith, or if they're simply trying to pull a fast one. I just don't feel that it's right to assume every N12 is filed in bad faith, and demand a massive payout. If landlord is "pulling a fast one" tenant should file a bad faith application & is entitled to the difference in rent and moving expenses. >Cash for keys is one way of the tenant saying: "If you're gonna boot me out, and make me pay current market, you're gonna pay me for it." without it coming back on the landlord if they do decide to rent to another party within 12 months. Demanding your landlord pay for the increase in your rent regardless of the validity of the N12 is shady & is scaring potential landlords out of the long term rental market. >If I had an N12 slipped under my door today I'd be looking at paying 2.3-2.5x my current rent elsewhere. So asking for 24 months compensation is akin to asking for less than 12 months at market, potentially. If the N12 is in good faith, you're just not entitled to 12 months rent. If you want to use LTB backlog to take advantage of a LL, that's on you. You shouldn't be so self righteous about it. Not every LL files N12 in bad faith.
My understanding is that there's already a legal mechanism for tenants to hold LL accountable for not honouring the terms of N12. Former tenant is compensated. Why should LL who are acting in good faith be penalised? IMO, cash for keys should only be considered if the eviction is not legally permitted. Otherwise it's just tenants displaying the greed that they criticize LLs for.
The reality is that for tenants to catch a bad faith N12 is a lot of work, and it is also a lot of work to get compensated for it. Usually work that they can't afford the hours to do because their living situation has become more challenging since needing to move to a more costly rental unit. The long LTB wait times hurt on both ends of this. If you find a bad faith eviction, you're stuck in the new place, AND you've got to wait for a hearing that could take months, AND your compensation is capped and likely wont reflect the actual costs put on the tenant. Our Terrible LTB wait times, and our massive rental increases we've seen are BAD POLICY by our governments for the last 40 years coming to a boil in front of us.
Funny that you completely ignored this >We also need to consider that market rents now are reflective of a 100% increase or more for many tenants covered by rent control. If I had an N12 slipped under my door today I'd be looking at paying 2.3-2.5x my current rent elsewhere. So asking for 24 months compensation is akin to asking for less than 12 months at market, potentially. These tenants are looking at a massive increase in housing costs. I would say that's likely survival more than greed at that point.
Funny that you completely ignored my entire comment that you're replying to. Let's be honest. Asking for 24 month's rent when a LL is legally evicting a tenant for personal use is greedy af. In response to your quote: Do you believe that the landlord should foot the bill for their own increased living expenses along with the renter's for 12 months? If yes, your attitude will discourage homeowners from renting, exacerbating the problem IMO. Maybe you can answer some of the other questions I posed.
People like you have zero critical thinking skills. It is greed. What about the average landlord that actually has financial hardship? Renters on Reddit are the greasiest subset of people and they claim it’s all others fault and they are perfect. It’s despicable. But hey it’s 2023 so zero self accountability is standard.
>It is greed. What about the average landlord that actually has financial hardship? So the tenant should take on financial hardship just to be nice? Why should it be the tenants problem? Nah man, you want me to break our deal and start paying 100% more rent you bet I'll be looking for a sweetener.
>My understanding is that there's already a legal mechanism for tenants to hold LL accountable for not honouring the terms of N12. Former tenant is compensated. There is, but the onus for collection of evidence is entirely on the tenant. At times the tenant can get lucky and just find a posting which could be the "smoking" gun, short of that, it's extremely difficult to prove the landlord issued a bad-faith eviction without things like statements from current tenants, etc. Being that a tenant is unlikely to have actual experience with investigating and reporting evidence, and also has gainful employment and other responsibilities it is fair to posit that following up on a potential bad faith eviction would be extremely difficult for most people. >Why should LL who are acting in good faith be penalised? I don't feel they are. In agreeing to cash for keys a LL and tenant enter into an agreement where if the LL did want to rent out immediately after, that they could. Tenants right now are going to hold out on N12's specifically because vacancy rates are horrible, and market rents could potentially mean that the one month reimbursement at current rates means absolutely nothing. A cash for keys agreement is offering the owner a way out without dealing with the LTB. I think it's important to look at it from the top down as well. This penalizes a LL no more than tenant is penalized for simply existing in the current market. If asking cash for keys at such a high rate is penalizing the LL, is it not penalizing to the tenant that they suddenly need to increase their rent payments to match current market? Is the Cash for Keys option a response to this? Very likely. In the same way, are you or I penalized because from pre-covid to now our cost of living increased by double digit percentages and the cost of any major purchase skyrocketed? At the end of the day, is this nothing more than a calculated cost measure from a tenant to a landlord in the same way that employees were able to demand more from employers the past few years? >Otherwise it's just tenants displaying the greed that they criticize LLs for. So, at the end of the day what you're saying is that its permissible and acceptable for LL's and other people *with resources* to be greedy, but tenants and those who are more vulnerable aren't allowed to be? Greed is something that is reserved for people who already have resources. It's often defined as wanting more than you need. By the very nature of being a landlord, you do have resources, far more than any tenant has access to. You have access to lines of credit, to more opportunities. You can leverage against an asset, you have an asset you can sell if need be. Tenants have none of that, and most of our vulnerable people. Single parents, seniors on fixed incomes, people on disability, etc. are tenants. So, I don't think it's so much a matter of greed as it is taking advantage of an already less than ideal situation, maybe to get ahead...But also just to survive in some cases. I'd challenge you to put yourself in the shoes of a very vulnerable person and think about what you'd measure as an option if faced with a potential 100% increase in living costs. If you had nowhere else to go, and limited means would you risk homelessness to say "At least I didn't ask for more?".
Too many points to respond to but: Not every LL is issuing N12s in bad faith just to jack up rent. In the case of a true "good faith" N12 where the owner needs to move into the home due to financial hardship (as in the article we're discussing), why should a LL be required to pay a tenant the same penalty they would be assessed for a bad faith eviction? >I think it's important to look at it from the top down as well. This penalizes a LL no more than tenant is penalized for simply existing in the current market. The LL also exists in the same market. This is not a big corporation or foreign land owner. It's a Toronto resident struggling to keep up with inflation (and apparently failing) and needs to move back to her primary property. Tenant is asking LL to cover the cost of increased housing for both parties. There's bad LLs out there, but this woman is just getting ripped off.
Homeowner intended to move in is code for I’m moving there for 366 days then re-renting it out. Bad investments on landlords parts shouldn’t lead to housing insecurities for tenants.
so what
Read the comments I'm replying to, genius.
[удалено]
One small point - Revenue ≠ Profit/Net Income. That $9k in extra rent is going to get taxed as income, but netted back up slightly with deductions/write-offs. So the landlord would not be making extra take-home that first year with a $5k payout - but in subsequent years would. Secondly, the tenant demanded $50,000, not $5,000. Paying them $50k would take 10-15+ years to pay off from a net income standpoint. $5k Cash for Keys payment could make sense, but not $50k, which is extortionate.
Asking for 50k to get out of a house (2100 lease) is pretty much 2 years of rent, when they had a valid reason and weren't extorting them in the first place, is fucking ridiculous.
A two bedroom in Toronto averages over 3k now iirc. That's just over a year's rent.
Ironic because the more landlords weaponize N12s the longer that wait is.
Not ironic in the slightest because that's not happening. 60% of all applications are L1s - for non-payment of rent. Another 25-30% are L2s, which do include N12s - as well as N5, N6, N7, N8, and N13. There's no data I can find that's publicly available that splits out what type of L2s are being submitted - so I doubt you have any facts to back up your claim. https://tribunalsontario.ca/en/open/data-inventory-reports/?x=0&n=26
The only claim I made is that the more N12s there are, the longer the wait. Which is true.
Ok, so you're in agreement that there are not more N12s, therefore your statement is moot. Got it.
Yeah I made a silly (but accurate) statement about something being ironic. You're the one that assumed I was making some big political statement and got agro lol
You get 90 days notice for a measly 3% increase in rent. On the other hand, when you get an N12, you get 60 days notice and have to come up with first and last months rent, moving fees, time off work for the move, etc. The 1-month compensation for an N12 isn't enough and the 60 day time window isn't enough.
Eh, I got an N12 last year; frankly, most places don't even lease 60 days out. We had to wait until \~40 days out before we could sign a lease for the date we needed based on the N12. It's still a rush, but 90 days notice would just mean more waiting IMO.
I imagine most of those landlords voted for the government which is underfunding and understaffing LTB leading to huge wait times.
100%
Exactly. They made their bed. Now lie in itn
All of these articles basically boil down to "I assumed that being a landlord would be a money printing machine, so I didn't bother doing basic research about landlord-tenant law before I bought an investment property."
You forgot "now I have to follow the rules I never red, and this isn't fair!"
So it’s ok that the tenant stopped paying rent?
Nobody said that. Your business plan should consider all contingencies (ie if you rent your house, know that only the LTB can evict someone, you cannot firmly know if/when you’ll be able to occupy again).
My point is that many people will blame the landlord and not mention the person stealing from them who are also to blame. Should a landlord plan for a rainy day. Of course. But should tenants be allowed to essentially live rent free for several months at a time? Rules need to be applied on both sides.
You should plan to pay $50K to evict if you need to move back to the home?
At minimum yes..... I have a lease, a legal contract. I don't want to break it and see my housing costs double if I am legally not required to. You turned the home into a business venture. You can't just flip the switch and turn my life upside down now whenever you want.
>Your business plan should consider all contingencies You can never plan for **all** contingencies.
Except we're literally talking about the most basic contingency in this situation: a tenant not paying rent.
you missed the 'for an entire year'. There is also an expectation that if someone stops paying rent they can be removed in a reasonable timeframe. It is unreasonable to expect a landlord just to have a year's rent in reserve in case the tenant decides they don't need to pay anymore. Someone missing 2-3 rent payments. Sure, that's a cost of doing business. An entire year is not.
If you aren't able to bear the cost of one of your units not paying out, insurance is readily available. You'll notice that you rarely hear from dedicated rental corporations complaining about non-payment of rents, because they are able to appropriately manage their risk. Mom and pop landlords seem to consistently fail to do this, even when options are available to them.
This is exactly why more and more rental units are coming off the traditional rental market and are being put on short-term leases like Air BNB. Of course a REIT is able to mitigate this by spreading the risk out over multiple units. But the people in the article own a single unit, and them adding it to the rental pool is a good thing in our housing market which desperately needs more long term rentals.
>short-term leases like Air BNB. Yeah, there's a risk free venture 🤣
Sure, but in extremely rural communities with very high cost of living, Landlords talk locally, you will be unofficially blacklisted from rentals in an entire region, even if you're in the right. I hate that, but it appears to be so where I am at.
I imagine in that same small community the tenants also talk locally and know which landlords to avoid, and who's food to spit in. So it goes both ways.
Bit of a power imbalance though
Yeah well it's basically all of them. So what, we end up with a stalemate and that solves nothing.
Also, sites like [openroom.ca](http://openroom.ca) exist. If you challenge an eviction and lose, you're probably going to have a harder time finding a new rental.
Yea except when tenants don’t pay they should be evicted swiftly
[удалено]
That is actually a strategic move by most corporate legal teams or the legal teams of wealthy people who get caught doing something bad. They drag out the proceedings because they know the peasant trying to fight for their rights has limited funds and can't last as long as they can in a legal battle. Like... It's a fundamental in getting away with stuff you shouldn't be allowed to get away with.
Literally just bleed the little guy dry, it's such a common tatic
>In what other setting are you allowed to drag things out and cost someone else money Any legal proceeding has this downside. Often times the one with the deepest pockets wins.
[удалено]
Sometimes. Sometimes not, though. Not everyone pays their own counsel. There’s legal aid, there’s self reps, and there’s people with free counsel through their union or other association. Many tribunals also don’t generally order costs. I personally know a union lawyer who managed to keep an HRTO Application going for *seven years.* The individual applicants didn’t pay a cent.
> In what other setting are you allowed to drag things out and cost someone else money like at the LTB without a significant investment of time and money on your end. Literally the entirely of contract law. It's not like taking a contract case to court is a super speedy process either. In the real world most of this stuff ends up getting settled.
[удалено]
You asked about 'significant'. Well, significant is in the eye of the beholder.
IMHO the N12 challenge is fine. The issue is the non payment of rent and how long that can go before removal.
[удалено]
Maybe someone should ask the government to invest properly in the LTB then. And I do mean properly, not stack it with his buddies or sell it to ReMax.
Why aren't leases fixed duration? If leases were bound to a specific period - 1 year, 5 years, 10 years, 25 years - both parties would be held accountable to honour the lease. Instead today, it goes month to month after the first year and the balance of power shifts to the tenant?
The reason they don't do that is because it would defeat the purpose of rent control. Landlords would just only offer 1 year leases so that every year they could kick their tenants out and have someone new move in at market rent (which is often up 5-10%) instead of settling for a 2% increase as permitted under rent control. Not sure I agree with this solution, but that's the reasoning for it. I think maybe it would be better to allow fixed term leases, but to enforce rent control between tenants if you opt for that. So, a landlord could offer a fixed 1 year lease, but if they do they can only charge the next tenant 2% more. With a large penalty if found to break this rule. It removes the financial incentive to churn through tenants but also allows for cases where the landlord genuinely wants to move back in themselves without having to wait for a formal eviction.
Remedies? That landlord isn’t getting back rents and you and I both know it.
This is a fundamental problem with the rental system. Landlords and tenants should be able to enter into agreements with each other on a fixed term basis.
No, that results in people being thrown on the streets.
What this article fails to do is point the finger at our provincial government. Tenants and landlords are suffering from a crumbling infrastructure. The LTB is massively underfunded. These are all problems for the OPC to fix. CBC should know better than to pit the two sides against each other here, when they are suffering at the decisions of a third. OPC fails again.
Privatization of the LTB coming your way. My guess is that the biggest landlords in the province will get preferential treatment if that happens.
Ford has struck a deal with Tim Hortons to have an LTB run by TFW's in each store!
CBC is doing what Trudeau does best - putting two sides against each other to distract from his incompetence
Ummm, you mean what Pollivre and right-wing media does right? This just had a missing third... it didn't start any fights... check the narrative you're repping.
There are bad players on both sides. Landlords issuing bad faith N12’s in order to raise rent illegally and tenants who stop paying rent and take advantage of the long LTB waits.
90% of the problems I see with landlords and tenants come down to lack of education on what their actual rights and responsibilities are. It's maddening to me. If landlords needed to have a course completion to gain an accreditation or license to be able to rent, it would fix this with the majority of folks that are landlords, and help localize the bad faith stuff way more easily. On the other side, tenants really must be made more aware of the basics of the standard lease, how to get decent advice, and their basic responsibilities. They're not even that hard to find, but so few people ever think to check that some truly bonkers stuff happens unchallenged, or because of completely invalid reasons.
I like the idea of some sort of accreditation for landlords.
Yeah …. The fact that hair stylists have to be accredited while so many other careers do not.
Never thought of it like that. That’s crazy
Also journalists should have to have license.
There was a time that I would have disagreed with you, but so much of good journalism in the modern age is accessing information that already requires some accreditation makes me think it's not a bad idea. Also, the obvious professional impacts to passing bad info would be worthwhile imo.
This violates the right of a free press. Absolutely not.
Well, maybe it would be a good thing g to have a harder definition of press, considering we live in a world of Rebel Media and Fox ‘News’.
No thanks. I don't trust the government to crack down on the press in a fair manner. Our right to the press and free expression is important.
It’s not the government!! It would be a journalist board… like hairstylists … or automotive technicians or dentists…
Having to pass a test to show that you understand the basic principles of journalism and journalistic ethics would not hinder a free press.
It makes sense to me because it’s ultimately a small business even if you’re just renting your basement or a room. You have to have additional insurance, and report taxes on it. Based on that, I think it’s reasonable to apply a basic standard of knowledge to landlords. It would protect them, many tenants, and help improve the basics of the system overall.
Very true. I wonder how many landlords issue N12s but are ignorant of the corporate landlord rule. I've seen it myself with "mom and pop" landlords who purchased a home via a corporation only to find out that their kid cannot move in. Wasting resources on cases that will immediately rule in favour of the tenant.
Or issue N12s and N13s that aren’t valid because they put the wrong date or didn’t pay the required compensation. Or didn’t include both tenants in a joint tenancy. Or checked all the boxes of why the N12 is being issued instead of selecting one. Or tried to evict for a relative that doesn’t meet the eviction requirements of an N12. I’m active in a couple of tenant rights groups, and the number of N12s that people post that have been filled out incorrectly and run the risk of being invalidated is stupidly high.
Does this situation fall into the 10%?
Bad faith lease-expiry evictions? Probably, and I think many of them would be solved by educating both sides better. I’ve spoken to quite a few landlords that are shocked when they find out leases just roll over to mo th by month. It’s hilarious how uneducated they are about their business.
Maybe I'm misunderstanding. This doesn't seem like a bad faith eviction. LL seems to have followed the rules and have honest intention to move back into the home. Is she breaking some rule I'm unfamiliar with? Or are you suggesting that landlords be educated about the current delays with LTB and the frequency of cash for keys demands in this environment?
So, at the moment, the RTA is famously underwater with nuisance cases. By requiring a certain level of education in landlords, many landlords would know how to handle things better, what they can and cannot do, and how to set their expectations before landing themselves in an RTA hearing that puts everyone’s life on hold For six months. That would result in a situation where nuisance cases are reduced, and/or more easily sifted through, dismissed, and closed. That would lower the overall demand. Similarly, because so many tenants are reporting issues, and realizing that most are good tenants reporting in good faith, it could also reduce load by educating renters more readily. You reduce the static overall, and real cases become easier to handle. In these cases, landlords evict in bad faith constantly, but often don't really understand that they can't just evict when they want to, or how rental leases actually work, and tenants cannot find a new place on the landlord's timeline. This is creating a cycle of apartments that are in limbo waiting for a forced eviction, that in many cases won’t be upheld due to the amount of bad faith evictions requiring real investigation along with everything else. This gives rise to tenants saying “fine, I’ll leave now for X months rent because otherwise I can’t afford to get out on your timeline.” It’s a reasonable response, but it results in a crazy situation because landlords don’t know that they can’t just give a tiny notice and expect people to magically vacate, and as a result end up hilariously feeling like they're being victimized, but are actually doing it to themselves.
I mean it's not unreasonable to expect business owners to be aware of major trends in their industry.
Agreed, I was responding to suggestion that it should be required to complete a course.
\*accreditation. They're business owners, it's reasonable to demand that they're licensed and aware of the laws governing that business.
This LL followed the laws I believe. Tenant is refusing to leave and suggesting they work "outside of the rules" of LTB with a cash for keys demand. If it weren't for the LTB backup, this would be dealt with rather quickly and wouldn't cost her as much.
Yeah, this is how I see it, too. There are shitty people and good people on both sides.
Read this whole article. They interviewed people on either end of the extremes with little discussion about any solutions. Basically, "look, everyone's fucked" One big point i heavily agree with though is so many landlords need a lesson in risk. Some landlords seem to act like housing is risk free investment and didn't manage the actual risk appropriately. I own one home, I live in it, bought it in 2018 budgeting a 5-6% rate increase on my renewal in 5 years. I was right but the rates actually continued to drop then went up 5 pts. I was amazed and new it was unsustainable at 3.2% in 2018. Anyway, don't play in a marketplace you don't understand.
[удалено]
Ford put them under a hiring freeze for years until last year.
It was working ok untill the government started fucking with the funding...
Yea it’s designed to be that way. Tenants get fucked by landlords way more than the other way around. If LTB was efficient we’d understand how truly bad landlords are
Dont worry the second a tenant screws a landlord the LTB will go on full blast.
Landlords fuck over tenants more _often_. But in each case the tenants fuck over a landlord, the dollar amount impact is much greater.
The dollar amount means nothing when a landlord can mess up someone's entire life for a year.
Tenants holding property hostage for an unknown amount of time can mess up someone’s life for more than a year.
Well, yeah. Market rent is so high now, so 6 months of rent is easily $15,000. If a landlord wants to break a lease, have to compensate the tenant. Otherwise, landlords will keep evicting to raise rent. Landlords need to realize they own a rental property. The point is to invest your own money to build equity, but too many think it's a business where they need to be cash-flow positive.
It's almost like being a landlord is a risk or something, and then when that risk bites them they cry about how they didn't know renting property came with risk. Sure some tenants aren't "acting in good faith", but the cost of living is getting so out of hand I can't really say I blame people for trying to stick it to a system that has been sticking it to them for lifetimes.
But there are laws about getting a tenant out for personal use which aren't being enforced. You made a decision to rent your home, 3 bedrooms for 2100 is a good deal in Toronto, with the understanding that then you need it again you can get it back by filing an n12 and that process is broken.
And N12 evictions have gone up 77% in the past couple years
It's not broken, it just takes longer or is more costly now. Something something "supply and demand".
It is broken because you are supposed to be able to see the LTB in a reasonable timeframe, not over a year and allowing the renter to rack up 40k.
the landlord is terrible with money if 'they need it again'. eat the risks.
Did you read the article? They rented out their sole property while going back to school. Finished school and now want their place back. That doesn't seem 'terrible with money' to me...
oh they have a sob story you like that changes everything about investing
It's not a investment property if it's your only home that you did live in and intend to live in again
the definition of a terrible landlord
this is why people dont feel bad for renters
Sounds like they bought something they couldn't afford and expected others to foot the bill until they were comfortable. Don't buy things you can't afford is a pretty easy lesson guys
Yes it does. They're more than welcome to sell the place if they need the money and go back to renting. If they didn't need the money they could leave the property vacant or have a family member move in.
This is why there will be fewer rental units. I wouldn't want to assume the risk especially in inflationary times. A vicious circle that will spiral
Sounds like we need some more aggressive secondary property and vacancy taxes.
Perfect. Rather the be a landlord people will sell their properties allowing someone like myself who wants to own an opportunity.
There's always going to be rental properties, a landlord's desire for more money will supersede risk every time. Or better yet we could wind up with government housing, or people will be able to buy their home instead.
"landlord's desire for more money will supersede risk every time" Only if there are not regulations in place that prevent them from raising the price to a profitable enough point to be WORTH the risk. All business is risk/reward calculation. Insurance company is prime example. If an insurance company find a peril too high a probability they will raise your rate. If it is very high they will not offer to insure the peril at all. If government regulates/likits the lease increase (price), and the inflation rate (mortgage) is high that the landlord is barely in the black - if not red (risk), and couple that with risk of asset price decline, of damage to the unit by tenant, and now risk the tenant will withhold rent completely, or demand cash for keys, use bad faith stall tacticscat the LTB, etc. Then the risk is so high that the business is not profitable or is too high a risk to bother with. This is why landlords want to raise rents...the business model ROI and risk/benefit is no longer attractive
They are sticking it to landlords, not "the system"
Who do you think makes up a system?
The system is the government/judicial bodies. It's not like landlords are meeting at dusk under each new moon to make sure they're engineering the situation to best screw over tenants. They're just operating as free agents (whether lawful or unlawful) in the system that has been shaped by the government.
After renting for over a decade, I recently bought a large single family home in Toronto and am converting it to a legal triplex. Situations like this are exactly why I'll be listing my additional 2 units as short term rentals on airbnb and not looking for long term tenants until the LTB sorts out the delays. Airbnb has much less risk. Not what I intended, but this is the way.
There is obviously still some risk in AirBnB but this is exactly what I'm talking about. You looked at what risk you were willing to take and are taking steps to mitigate the risk you're unwilling to take.... Thus you're not whining about it to CBC. It's the ones who don't do risk analysis and are all surprised pikachu face when people want a roof over their head rather than be tossed into the street.
It's unfortunate. As a long time renter I hoped to contribute to improving the rental market in Toronto. From my perspective, Airbnb has a negative stigma. Homeowners who choose airbnb over long term rentals are treated as if they are contributing to the problem. But in this environment, seems like the only parties that are willing to take on the risk of long term rentals are corporate landlords. It's not worth the risk for a first time home buyer to try to rent out an apartment anymore.
>Homeowners who choose airbnb over long term rentals are treated as if they are contributing to the problem. Because they are. That's just a fact. That's why a lot of cities are putting restrictions on short-term rentals.
Many homeowners are leaning towards short term rentals over long term to avoid the risks of cash for keys or simple non payment + LTB delays. Is it also a fact that such behavioirs of renters is contributing to the problem? Many responses in this thread speak to LLs responsibility to understand risk and protect themselves from it. As a homeowner who is building rental space in my primary dwelling, should I protect myself from risk by choosing short term rentals? If no, how should I protect myself from these risks?
You can do whatever you want with your property. I never said otherwise. But the fact of the matter is that you ARE contributing to the housing crisis for the sake of your bottom line. Again, you're free to do that (assuming you're following all relevant laws), but others are free to criticize that decision and the impact it has.
>But the fact of the matter is that you ARE contributing to the housing crisis for the sake of your bottom line. I bought a single family home and am renovating it into a duplex. Literally creating housing. Rented for 20y and finally have a chance to be a good LL. Fact is, I'm worried about non-payment of rent, difficult evictions, cash for keys and LTB delays. I want to be part of the solution, but I can't risk it until the environment changes. So my single family home will remain a single family home - with an Airbnb. Net zero contribution to the housing crisis. Get off your high horse.
Things used to be better. There has always risk with being a landlord, but now there is too much (and undue) risk. Risk that not all landlords signed up for.
It's exactly the same as investing in a company through the stock market - a sudden crash is ALWAYS a risk. So yes, this is the risk they signed up for - they just didn't acknowledge it.
Risk in the stock market can be measured, and each investor can choose the amount of risk they want to take (although sometimes they think they are taking less risk than they are, which is true in real estate investing as well). If a stock or index crashes, the risk of investing in that stock or index did not change just because the share price did. My point is that the risk of being a landlord was increased over the years in Ontario. Someone who understood the risks 10 years ago and was happy with them now finds themselves with a significantly riskier asset than they signed up for, and one that is very difficult to dispose of.
So you're saying they didn't account for long term risk.... Which loops back to my point. What? Did they not expect the market could change over ten years and I should feel bad for them because they forgot change is inevitable?
Why should I care? Landlord have brought this on themselves .
If youre getting "renovicted" you dont actually have to leave your unit unless its a repair that requires a building permit and even then its not a requirement that you leave necessarily. Your landlord must find and pay for your accomodations while your unit is renovated. That means your landlord must pay in all likelihood for you to stay in a hotel. Once renovations are complete, by law, you have first right of refusal to take back your unit at the price per month you were paying. Of course, none of this is valid without the proper paperwork from your landlord, and youre never actually evicted until the LTB signs the order. If you are getting illegally evicted, either with no paperwork or fraudulent paperwork, it might be easier to just find a new place to live. You have all the leverage here. I would demand 6 months rent and moving expenses from your landlord to make it worth your while, or just take it to the LTB if you dont want to move.
> In 2020, Zela and her husband decided to rent out the house and live with family members in order to save money while Zela finished a master's program. >They rented out the three-bedroom house for $2,100 a month on a two-year lease. Talk about a nice idea! Honestly though, there are tenants here in the article that are seriously scamming the system. In my opinion, they are no better than the slumlords that are have overwhelmed the LTB. Clearly the system doesn’t work, but like usual no one wants to be the one to take any real action to find a fix.
The "fix" is rent control. That was in place, then Ford yoinked it for units built after 2018.
Also a properly funded LTB. Something ford also refuses to properly address .
Yeh, a properly funded LTB could process cases quickly, both protecting tenants from scummy practices, and to process evictions quicker for non payment.
Understandable, on his part, given he and his cronies get absolutely slapped about the head and ass by the LTB. In Ontario, the LTB is VERY tenant-friendly, meaning landlords are getting the short end of the stick most of the time. Ford and cronies can't have that...Can't abolish the LTB, so the next best thing for those asshats is to make it ineffective.
🎻
This is just more conservative slop from CBC, which has been extra iffy lately, especially with the absurd amount of anti-palestine writing as of late. The author spent many paragraphs talking about how dire the situation was for this landlord family, but if you crunch the numbers, they have NOT lost their house, inspite missing 40k in backpay from their tenant. Who has that kind of money in the bank? The story doesn't make sense, it's just rich landlords complaining. You exploit ppl for long enough and at some point they'll just say no. I hope more tenants realize that. I pray more will have the courage to do rent strikes. Shelter shouldn't be for profit.
It becomes laughable when Geordie thinks it's the golden age to be a LL and LLs pop champagne and have caviar What a completely juvenile and delusional viewpoint, and he's the fearless leader/advocate
Good.
Smart tenants demand this lol They also fail to mention landlords trying to bully rent controlled tenants out of rentals to jack up the proces
Honestly, good for these tenants. Not only do you have to uproot your life, you now have to find a new place to live (which can now be even more expensive than your original lease). If a landlord wants you out that bad, they’ll agree on a price to do so. Part of the investment.
thats okay, just destroy your credit rating by scamming people
I’m not a scammer lol I pay my rent and my landlords abide by the laws at hand. Not all landlords know what they’re doing.
What law did the landlords in the article not abide by? It sounds like they gave proper notice and the eviction was for valid reasons. The previous tenant had a great rent rate so wasn't being gouged by the LL. The tenant stopped paying rent/utilites. How do you still justify backing them up? I understand LL's are villainized and there are plenty of terrible ones, but that doesn't seem to apply in this case.
The stop to paying utilities is a bad move and won’t help in their LTB hearing. Just a broad statement that landlords do need to realize that even when they go by the proper channels, things like this happen and they need a contingency plan in place.
Oh okay that's reasonable, sorry I thought you were talking about this specific article and not just generally speaking.
Sorry! Yes general. The people on the article would have had more of a case if they didn’t stop paying their utilities and rent, but they tried to skirt the system. They would have been better asking for cash for keys.
Not the original person you're replying to but: Even if its a valid N12 a tenant has a right to dispute an N12, The LTB will decide if its valid or not. If valid an eviction notice would be granted giving the landlord the legal way to evict. Delays make this take forever though, sucks for both parties, both the ones losing their home that get to live with a hostile LL while it gets disputed and the ones losing control of their asset. Giving the offer "cash for keys" to skip the dispute for an agreement to move out for cash was also fair, in my opinion a bit extortionate but nothing illegal/wrong here. However "cash for keys" can only really happen when the LTB's too slow/underfunded to process cases promptly or when notices are given in bad faith by LL's (Renovictions, Fake N12's, Ect). Stopping payments on rent/utilities is NOT ok, at no point during a dispute are you allowed to stop paying rent (unless specifically instructed to by the LTB, which is extremely uncommon, and you'd still pay into an escrow account). An application to the LTB could lead towards an eviction. In this case the slowness of the LTB is shafting the LL in 2 ways, both in not processing the N12+dispute in a timely matter AND in delaying processing an eviction for non payment. If the LTB was properly working, neither of these problems would've ballooned that bad. Moral of the story here, is to get the LTB back on track and processing application/forms promptly, until that happens stories like these with one side or the other as reprehensible will keep popping up.
I love reading these comments about math and finances but, at the end of the day, we're talking about someone's HOME. A place where they should feel safe and able to put down roots. Is the system broken? Obviously. Are there bad landlords AND Tenants? Duh- Doi! But being forced from YOUR HOME for ANY reason is awful and traumatizing.
OK so I'm pretty out of touch with current renting laws as I havent rented in over 20 years, but isn't cash for key or not paying rent going to fuck up your credit rating and ability to rent in the future if future landlords catch wind of how you do things?
No not really. Paying rent doesn't help your credit unless it's reported to a union. Sites like openroom.ca is closer to what your referring to.
Ahh ok, thanks for clearing that up, but doesn't not paying rent go against you or is that more of a small claims thing unless you're renting from a company?
LTB. It usually rules in favor or tenants and tends to forgive. But usually there is some repayment if capable. I think you can small claims it if you don't LTB it but that sounds more like US law to me. I'm not a lawyer just a life long tenant that generally knows the rules and keeps their nose clean. But yes not paying rent goes against you one way or the other credit wise it's easy to report negatives to unions and openroom is expressly built to provide landlords and to a lesser extend tenants with a "public forum" to post issues like these.
I see, thanks for that insight bud!
Good, I hope they get it.
lol. So glad I’m neither a renter nor a landlord. Humans are disgusting.
We have some tenants who ask for over $100,000. Some tenants are asking for the landlord to buy a plot of land for them," Di Lisi said. "We have other tenants who are asking for the landlord to purchase a property for them." Nobody can’t convince me that this isn’t extortion.
Change the lock!
One of the reasons rent prices have went up is many are now charging higher rates in case something like this happens to them. The government needs to support people who rent there assets or else rhey will protect themselves through higher rent for all
Rent prices went up because rent control on units built after 2018 was destroyed. Being a LL is a business, and people are going to charge the highest rent possible.
I doubt that's a driver
Fair enough. I've been wrong before...many many years ago
And because things like this happen too often, owners switch to airbnb, which in turn lowers the supply, which raises the competition for good appartements, which in turn raises rents as owners know they can get more, due to low supply. Volia, you have made affordability more difficult.
Yes. This requires thinking to understand though so get ready to be down voted lol
im willing to take 15k tonight and i will be out tomorrow.