Hamilton landlords – the Toronto Star Recommends Ontario Landlords Association Membership

The story we published earlier this year about a Hamilton landlord who was forced to sell her rental property and quit being a landlord led to a lot of emails sent to us.

The former landlord and the situation she faced was written in the Hamilton Spectator.

Tenants Didn’t Pay Rent For 8 Months

When the tenants didn’t pay rent the first month the Landlord applied to evict them for ‘non-payment of rent’ with a form N4 at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board.

The Ontario system for landlords and tenants is biased and can be easily and maliciously manipulated by tenants to delay being evicted even without paying any rent.

This is what happened. The tenants knew how to manipulate the system and kept coming up with ways to delay the eviction process for months on end.

When the tenants were finally ordered to pay rent of nearly $7,000 to the landlord or move they had already pulled a Midnight Run and were gone.

Forced To Sell Her Hamilton Rental Property

With damages to repairs, clean up costs and so many months of no rent the landlord cannot cover her mortgage and is forced to sell.

What Does The Landlord Think Should Happen?

She makes a couple of good suggestions on how the system needs to change.

1. Tenant Blacklist

She believes there should be a blacklist or ‘bad tenant list’ that will warn landlords and also warn the Landlord and Tenant Board.

2. LTB Must Change

The entire process can last for too long by bad tenants who know how to manipulate the system.

How Can Ontario Landlords Avoid Renting to Bad Tenants?

In Ontario we don’t have a bad tenant list and cannot even see tenant names on official eviction documents.

There’s also little desire for the government to change the system they created.

So What Can Ontario Landlords Do?

You have to protect yourself with extremely careful tenant screening.

And careful tenant screening means always make sure you run a credit check on your tenants before renting to them.

Credit checks are the only way for landlords to verify what tenants say and to find out about their level of financial responsibility in paying the bills they owe (including rent) and also shows past address and ‘real’ current and former employers.

BC landlords are now making tenant credits an automatic part of choosing who to rent to after reading stories of serial bad tenants who have ripped off BC landlords for thousands of dollars this year.

We to think of Alberta as a very pro-business province. It is, but Alberta landlords are still making sure to take matters into their own hands by running TVS tenant credit checks before signing a lease.

Toronto Star Recommends Joining the Ontario Landlords Association

Here is what the Toronto Star wrote to help landlords avoid renting to bad tenants:

Join a group such as the Ontario Landlords Association where after becoming a member, you can do a credit check for as low as $10, and use their supporting materials to assist you.

It’s terrific advice because you can become a member for only a one-time fee and get premium Ontario credit checks and the Ontario Landlord Rental Kit.

Join the Ontario Landlords Association and start running premium credit checks for only $10 per check!