Hamilton Landlord Says She Was Forced To Sell Her Rental Property After Bad Tenants Stopped Paying for 8 Months!

We’re read lots of stories about bad tenants causing problems for Ontario Landlords before.

Just last week the Toronto Star published a story about a person they call a “Tenant From Hell.”

This tenant is now being evicted from her 7th rental property since 2005.

This tenant uses the same method to get unsuspecting landlords to rent to her.

Here’s how the tenant scam works:

1. The tenant shows up and is very cheery and well-spoken

2. Tenant looks for properties that need a little ‘fixing up’ and promises to do the repairs

3. The landlords don’t screen properly and don’t do a credit check

4. The landlords rent to this tenant

5. The tenant stops paying rent and uses bylaws and other methods to avoid paying rent for months.

This is a sneaky and effective method to trick trust-worthy landlords and then manipulate the Landlord and Tenant Board system to avoid paying rent for months.

Are There Bad Tenants In Hamilton?

Landlords are reporting to us that there are now more excellent tenants in Hamilton than ever before.

However, small landlords must still be very careful who you rent to.

Hamilton Landlord Loses Her Rental Property Because Tenants Don’t Pay Rent For 8 Months

The landlord is Althea Hall. She bought her investment property in Hamilton in 2003.

According to a new report in the Hamilton Spectator Hall was forced to sell her rental property because her former tenants didn’t pay rent for 8 months!

Hall couldn’t afford to cover her mortgage payments.

This led to the rental property being sold by a Bank as a Power of Sale.

Why Didn’t The Landlord Evict The Tenants Who Stopped Paying Rent?

The Ontario Residential Tenancy Act and the Landlord and Tenant Board are unfair to landlords.

Clever tenants can manipulate the system to avoid paying rent for months on end.

It’s easy to make up false maintenance claims as an excuse to not pay rent and to delay being evicted.

Even the Hamilton Spectator was fooled as their original story on this situation sided with the tenants who were claiming their rental home wasn’t safe and the landlord was a slum-lord.

It took months for Hall to finally get her tenants to move.

And when they moved, they still owed her over $6000 in owed rent!

Hall says it’s difficult to predict which tenants will be good and which ones won’t and she is happy to stop being a landlord in Ontario.

How Can Hamilton Landlords Protect Themselves From Bad Tenants?

The problem for Hall is she didn’t properly screen the tenants she rented to.

Instead, she listened to the “stories” and didn’t verify what they said.

She trusted them and in the Ontario Rental Industry trusting tenants can lead you to being burned.

The most important point is Hall didn’t do tenant credit checks. And it cost her thousands of dollars in losses.

Why Should Hamilton Landlord Run Credit Checks On Tenants?

A tenant credit check will tell you the ‘truth’ about your renters.

1. Do they live where they say they live?

2. Do they work where they say they work?

3. Do they have a history of being financially responsible?

4. Do they owe former landlords money?

You get a lot of essential information from a tenant credit check. For more information check out Ontario Landlord Credit Check to see why this is such a key part of being a successful landlord.

Even in more “landlord friendly” provinces small landlords are waking up! More and more BC landlords are doing credit checks.

Even in pro-business, landlord friendly places Alberta landlords are also doing landlord credit checks to make sure they rent to good tenants (and avoid the tenants from Hell out there!)

How Can Hamilton Landlords Do Tenant Credit Checks?

You can join the Ontario Landlords Association for only a one-time registration fee.

You can then start doing premium credit checks for only $10 per check!

Becoming a member can save Hamilton landlords thousands of dollars.

Hamilton Landlords – Join the Ontario Landlords Association for a one time registration fee and start doing premium credit checks on your prospective tenants!

Don’t get burned by Tenants From Hell who won’t pay you rent for months and will manipulate the Landlord and Tenant Board against you!