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Welcome to the Ontario Landlords Association
for Small Business Landlords

This site is specifically designed for landlords of all types. Whether you rent a single apartment, or are managing an entire portfolio this site provides the latest documents, opinions and in-sights in to the issues that affect you and your business!

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This is an on-line community, a portal for landlords involved in renting property - novice and experienced alike. It provides free access to information, resources and suppliers of value to residential and commercial landlords, tenants, letting agents, property managers and other property professionals.

The Bentley-driving tenant from hell

By MICHELE MANDEL, Toronto Sun

She’s b-a-a-a-a-ck.

The Bentley-driving, condo-trashing tenant from hell who likes to claim she’s a Persian princess is back before the Landlord and Tenant Board for the umpteenth time.

Call her Mojgan Amir-Davani — or by her other six known monikers: Mozhe Aamere, Mozhe (Mozhgan) Avanni, Mozhe Amerjhajar, Mozhe Sheena Mere, Mozhgan Amere Ghajaar or Amiri Mojgan.

Whatever her alias, her modus operandi is the same: She’s terrorized at least four high-end condo owners in North York, convincing them she’s a successful broadcasting executive only to turn into a destructive squatter who expertly plays the system for months of free rent before she’s finally turfed out and moves on to her next victim.

We first told her tale here in January, of frustrated landlord Jane Randall who rented her investment property to the dark haired beauty only to be stiffed with $12,000 in unpaid rent and thousands more in damage.

Claiming to be suffering from cancer and refusing to move, her dog’s feces spilling off her balcony, the carpets stained with blood and urine, Amir-Davani was brilliantly manipulative.

When Randall repeatedly turned to the tenancy board for help, she was told to wait. And wait some more.

Six months later, she finally left only to move down the street into a Hollywood Ave. condo owned by another small landlord who’s now going through the same horror story.

We’ll call him Frank because he’s too embarrassed to use his real name. Renting out his two-bedroom luxury unit for the first time, the 35-year-old scientist was counting on the $1,920 monthly rent to help pay off his student loans and mortgage.

He figured his realtor had found him the ideal tenant when she arrived in a chauffeur-driven Bentley to sign the deal in February.

She said she was newly arrived from California and provided a reference no one seems to have checked.

Within a few months, his kitchen was damaged by fire, tenants below were complaining about feces dripping from her balcony and her rent cheques began to bounce as hard as a rubber ball.

Amir-Davani didn’t respond to a request for comment.

During a recent inspection, a contractor told Frank it will cost $9,800 to repair the damage so far. He’s also out $2,000 in legal fees and at least $6,000 in arrears.

“It’s hard to sleep some nights,” Frank admits. “The financial cost is one thing. But then there’s the emotional thing: Is she ever going to be out?”

He’s turned to Harry Fine, president of Landlord Solutions and the paralegal who helped evict Amir-Davani from a Harrison Garden condo in 2007.

“I see it every week and my heart goes out to them,” says Fine of naive landlords scammed by professional squatters. “They don’t check references. They don’t do credit checks.”

She finally agreed to move by Aug. 7 as long as Frank waived her back rent and damages. Not surprisingly, the date came and went, with her still comfortably ensconced in his ruined condo.

What she didn’t know is that Fine arranged for her to be confronted by Frank, Randall, and her 2007 landlord when she arrived at her eviction hearing Aug. 9.

“Like a husband walking into a room to be faced by his three ex-wives who had been exchanging stories, the tenant walked into the hearing room Monday morning to find not one but three of her victims,” Fine recalls. “She was furious.”

A landlord and tenant adjudicator gave her until Aug. 31 to leave. But Frank’s hardly home free: As soon as Amir-Davani files an appeal — and she’s vowed to do so — he’ll be back waiting for yet another hearing and yet another eviction date.

“The legal system just takes forever and is so weighted to the side of tenants,” he complains.

Which makes even less sense when this notorious tenant has been the subject of so many eviction hearings.

“She’s been in the exact same hearing room and still it goes on? How does someone get away with that?” he sighs.

“She’s the tenant from hell and beyond.”

http://www.torontosun.com/news/columnists/michele_mandel/2010/08/20/15092061.html

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A Cautionary Tale For Landlords in Ontario

The devastation in this video should have been avoided. The tenants responsible for this destruction have done this before. Too many times. Their victims: small, residential landlords who were vulnerable, unsuspecting and could ill afford what would happen to their investment properties.

The victims: Tyler and Lisa Sage, Amatal Wadood, Gary and Nancy Woodley, Judin and Anne Xavier, Lois Debeaucamp. There are more.

The story is the same for each of them. The tenants pose as a responsible and financially responsible couple, seeking a nice home in a lovely neighbourhood. They express a sincere desire to raise their little girl in a safe area, and are planning to purchase their own home one day soon. Landlords love their story, they appear to be excellent prospective tenants.

Soon after they move in, the games begin. Bounced cheques, emails full of excuses and lies. The moment the landlords begin to stand up to them, the truth is realized. They lied from the beginning. They know the system. They threaten, and hold property hostage while the system governing evictions grinds along. All the while, the conditions inside and outside the homes deteriorates. When it’s over, the rent arrears are significant, the damage is unbelievable. Instead of being ashamed or remorseful, however, they file applications against their landlords for harassment, and file Claims in the higher courts for the heaps of belongings they leave behind.

These tenants do not face any exposure or consequence before the Landlord and Tenant Board, and they are empowered to do it over and over and over again. It’s time to ask WHY.

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How to Contact Us

The Ontario Landlord’s Association main contact will be Steve Borys located at our Toronto office. Steve provides our clients with over 30 years of insurance experience and will be very pleased to answer your questions and provide insurance advice in regards to your properties.

We will be frequenting the forums to answer any questions you may have for us, but for more timely answers do not hesitate to contact us.

For a quote on your properties or advice on your current coverages, fax or email us a copy of the first page of your policy and we will provide you with any insight we may have about your policy.

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Must See TV For Landlords – Part 1

Inside Toronto Real Estate – Part 1

Landlords Burned by Internet Scammers

Recently a Newfoundland landlord found himself in a controversy regarding a rental ad he posted on Kijiji.ca.

After advertising his condo rental, the landlord was contacted by a potential tenant who referred to an ad for the same                                                                    

property on another Internet classified site, Craigslist.

Suspicious, the landlord researched Craigslist and indeed found his property advertised by an impostor.

The fake landlord was asking half the rent, and allowing both smoking and pets on the property, which the actual landlord had restricted.

The local police found there was nothing they could do to stop the fraud.  Craigslist also failed to pull the ad or warn potential victims of the fraud, so the landlord took matters into his own hands.  He contacted the fraudsters directly, and posed as a tenant to gain more information.

He was told to send a deposit, and upon receipt of the funds, the “landlord” would ship the keys.  He was invited to view the apartment on his own.  Eventually, the scammers became suspicious of the real landlord’s probing inquiry, and pulled the ad.

In a related incident, a RCMP officer went undercover to bust an Internet rental scam in Kelowna, B.C.  In this case, a teenager and her 21-year old friend posted an ad for a rental on Castanet. The 17-year old posed as the landlord’s daughter.  A victim deposited some money in the “landlord’s” bank account without becoming suspicious of the scam. The victim believed that the property could not be shown at that time because it was currently occupied. A few days later, another victim posted a warning on the Internet regarding that ad.  That prompted a call to the police.

The fraudsters made the mistake of continuing to communicate with their victim and demanded the rest of the agreed-upon payment. But instead of meeting with the victim, the cons met an undercover officer.  Both were arrested and charged with fraud.

In the U.S., landlords have been warned by the F.B.I. of a rash on similar Internet scams.  Perhaps the most notorious was a couple who moved across country to an Arizona home offered for rent in Craigslist.  The family of nine could not believe the luck of finding a large house with a swimming pool for such low rent and immediately sent a deposit to hold the property.  In this case, the tenants were given access, and actually started moving into the property before the real owner returned from vacation to find the  family in her home.

In an act of great kindness, the owner allowed the victimized tenants to remain for some time until they could find another place to live.

While some of these frauds may seen obvious to landlords, who understand the normal rental process, they are not so obvious to renters.  It is estimated that scammers often net thousands of dollars from each of these fake ads.

Some landlords are becoming skeptical of posting Internet ads, and relying instead upon rental signs, or newspaper classifieds. Others post warning within their own ads, for instance, advising that all applicants must meet with the landlord personally, and the approved applicant will undergo a credit check before they will be asked to pay a deposit.

This post is provided by Tenant Verification Services, Inc., helping landlords reduce the risks of renting with fraud prevention tools that include Tenant Screening, Tenant Background Checks, (U.S. and Canada), as well as Criminal Background Checks, and Eviction Reports (U.S. only).


“Ontario may just have the strictest legal requirements for landlords in North America.”

Being a Landlord in Ontario

I received in the mail yesterday my real estate broker’s regular newsletter.  In it there is an article entitled “Becoming a Landlord – Do Your Homework”.  The first sentence of the article is “Ontario may just have the strictest legal requirements for landlords in North America.”

In my opinion, the article ought to be re-titled “Becoming a Landlord – Have Your Head Examined.”  I don’t know if it’s fair to say that Ontario has the strictest landlord laws, but I think it is very fair to say that the Landlord and Tenant Act is extremely tenant-friendly.  My criticism is NOT with the existence of the LTA’s terms, rather it is with the inflexibility of the system.  I will be the first to recognize that the legislation was put in place in response to actual examples of what slum-lords have done to tenants.  I will also be the first to recognized that even with this legislation in place there are still slum-lords operating in Toronto and throughout the province (thankfully, none of them are my clients).  I should also say that in the past I have represented both landlords and tenants in various matters and I do not have a bias in favour of one or the other.  The difficulty is that the legislation which was enacted to avoid the abuses by landlords years ago swung the pendulum way over to the other side and now permits abuses by tenants.  There is no fair balance.  Some will say, “yes, that’s true, but it’s a policy decision made by the legislature that it is entitled to make.”  I agree.  But that doesn’t make it right and it is ultimately, then, a choice between two evils.

I should also point out that I am dealing with residential tenancies here, not commercial tenancies.  So, this will affect small businesses, for example, where they purchase a building that has a main floor store front or office space and then an apartment or apartments in the floor(s) above.

The Ontario legislature’s desire to protect tenants from slum-lords the legislation has turned into a nightmare for decent landlords to get rid of problem tenants.  Let’s give a few examples.  The first area is rent.  If the tenant fails to pay rent on January 1, the landlord must give a notice, if the notice is ignored, the landlord can bring an application to the Landlord and Tenant Board to have the tenancy terminated for non-payment of rent.  The Board hearing might not be scheduled until April 1.  At any point up until the start of the hearing, the tenant can pay the rent – and remember, we are only talking about January’s rent.  If the tenant has failed to pay February and March rent by that time, a new application (or applications) must be filed.  So, if a tenant wanted to be perpetually late, the landlord has to bring a series of applications and if the tenant pays at the last second, the landlord is precluded from kicking the tenant out.  The legislation was put in place to avoid slum-lords from using the slightest delay in rental payment as an excuse to kick out a rent-controlled tenant and replace him or her with a higher paying tenant.  The problem is that it is now open to abuse by tenants.

Another example, I have a client who is a superintendant at an apartment building.  The client has a dispute with one of the tenants.  One day, my client alleges and I personally believe him but it has never been fully decided at the LTB or in court, the tenant decided to throw a 4 litre bottle of oil off the tenant’s balcony and narrowly missed my client working many stories below.  This type of conduct is completely reprehensible and ought to be a justification for immediate eviction of the tenant.  An application for this relief was brought to the tribunal.  The application was dismissed.  Why?  Because it was not a “continuing” event.  The provision in the legislation was clearly aimed at situations such as tenants who play their music loudly or have parties all the time.  The result is that the tenant would have to keep doing acts which endangered my client’s health or amounted to a nuisance for an uninterrupted period of seven days before the tenant could be evicted.  Perversely enough, if the tenant does whatever the problem is for six days in a row, then takes a day off, and then goes another six days, then takes another day off, etc., etc. there is little that a landlord can do.  Again, a provision in the legislation that is open for abuse by tenants.

A third example, in the most recent round of legislative reform landlords were precluded from being able to request that tenants permit the landlords to directly debit the tenants’ bank accounts for the rental payments.  This is joined with the existing provision that landlords cannot ask for post-dated cheques.  The only guaranteed obligation of a tenant, regardless of the nature of the tenancy, is that the tenant pays rent.  Direct debits permit the landlord to more cost-effectively get paid.  The argument against direct debits is that sometimes the tenant doesn’t have the money on the first.  If that’s the case then (a) the tenant is in breach of the lease and that’s the tenant’s problem; and (b) if the tenant writes a cheque on January 1 hoping that it will be deposited on January 2 at the landlord’s bank and that by the time it makes it over to the tenant’s bank on January 3 there will be money to cover the cheque, the tenant is engaged in “cheque kiting” which is illegal – and something the law should not be encouraging.

I could go on.  Suffice it to say, over the years I have had opportunities with friends and otherwise to invest in real estate which would make me a landlord, either directly or indirectly.  In light of Ontario’s legislation, I have steadfastly refused.  Those who are landlords are either braver souls than I, or maybe they should have their heads examined.

courtesy of Christoper A.L. Caruana

Landlord Legal on Rogers TV (Part 1)

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How Much Can I raise the Rent in 2011?

Despite huge increases in property taxes, fees, and energy costs, and the HST, the provincial government has announced that the rent control guideline for 2011 will be 0.7%, the lowest increase in the history of rent control in Ontario.

HOMEOWNER HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR GROW OP HE DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT! CityNews.ca Staff

In a landmark court decision, a landlord is being forced to speak publicly about the grow-op found in the property he owns. CityNews reporter Roger Petersen talks to the man and tells his unfortunate story in the video below.

Click here for video

New Fee for Landlord Applications

As of April 6, 2009, the fees for landlord applications for evictions and for applications to collect arrears was raised from $150 to $170 per application. Small Claims court remains at $75 for an application.

The Residential Tenancies Act replaced the Tenant Protection Act on January 31, 2007

Once you are a Landlord in Ontario, these laws will influence every decision you make.

Some notable changes:

*All new tenants must be provided with a Board approved form outlining the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants and how to contact the Board

*All evictions will go to a hearing

*Tenants may raise any maintenance issues or any other matter they may have filed an application about at an eviction hearing

Study the Act. Memorize the Act. Question the Act! Challenge the Act! Find out more on the Discussion Forum.

How Much Can I Raise the Rent?

Despite huge increases in property taxes, fees, and energy costs, the Government of Ontario announced the 2010 rent guideline at 2.1%. The guideline is based on the average inflation for the last 12 month period. The 2009 allowable increase was 1.8%

The Garbage Strike: Prepare for your Property Tax Refund! Wait, what's this...

Mayor David Miller said there will be no property tax refund, calling it "impossible."

GOT BEER????

A landlord's nightmare!! A single guy lived in this townhouse for 8 years in Barrie, ON. The Landlord thought he was the best renter because he never called or complained and was never late on a payment. These pictures don't even come close to what it really looked like! Century 21 realty had already moved some of the cans out, and they had caved in the tunnels that the renter had made to get to the bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. All this, yet you still do not see any dust, scattered clothing, or dirty dishes anywhere. Other than having a minor drinking problem, he was basically a very clean, organized person. Add to this, the fact that he was concerned about his health, proven by the fact he only drank "Light" beer. Beer cans by the tens of thousands. Mountains of cans burying the furniture. The water and heat were shut off, apparently on purpose by the tenant, who evidently drank Coors Light beer exclusively for the eight years he lived there. There was an estimated 70,000 beer cans in the townhouse (2,917 cases).

To accumulate that amount of cans, the resident must have consumed an average of 24 beers a day for the 8 years of his tenancy!!

How's your ROI? Worth it?

Discuss the ROI rental markets in Ontario.

Discuss the best ROI rental markets in Canada and Internationally.

In the Discussion forums.

'Dalton Sales Tax' Will Hit Renters Hard: Hudak

Toronto, ON - Newly elected Leader of the Ontario PC Party, Tim Hudak, was at a Toronto apartment building to highlight the negative impact the 'Dalton Sales Tax' or DST will have on renters in the province. The DST is the harmonization of the PST and GST, and will increase the cost of numerous items, including rent.

"Ontario families and seniors are already working hard enough to manage household expenses, balance the chequebook and pay the bills and with Dalton McGuinty's latest tax grab it will be even harder," Hudak said. "Under the Dalton Sales Tax renters will be punished at a time when they can least afford it, because the DST means an automatic jump in the price of rent. The Dalton Sales Tax must be stopped."

Who's that guy lurking in the Hallways outside of the Landlord and Tenant Board Hearings anyway...? One residential property investor reports on their experiences at LTB hearings:

You know the person. Usually a guy.

The guy who is on a first name basis with the Ajudicator, looking like they are best friends. He's the guy who looks like he's a key member of the Landlord Tenant Board.

The guy who carries a book and quotes from it, 'educating' the Ajudicator who then looks at their computer and says "oh yes, I see it here!" (Secret: the Book is the Residential Tenancy Act and it's book-marked with the same few pages used over and over!)

They guy who is suddenly defending the Tenant you are evicting or seeking money for damages. The guy who constantly plays the same tired old legal games over and over. The "we have to schedule another hearing because this Tenant didn't receive the N4!" leaving the non-lawyer Landlord shell-shocked and agreeing because they don't know what else to do, except they served it legally. Or the "hand over all the evidence" trick and the Landlord hands over all their notes to him. This is just a start.

So who is it? He doesn't wear a name-tag. He won't give you a name-card. He might mumble something at the beginning of the Hearing (maybe not) when most people aren't even in the room yet.

He's...Tenant Duty Counsel! And you're paying his salary!

Find out more in the Discussion Forums.

"Let me start by wishing you well on your new site. Your efforts and enthusiasm are remarkable and laudable." Mr. Dan McIntyre, Federation of Metro Tenants Assocation

Helping Landlords For 40 Plus Years!

Russ Innanan, the former President of ONTARIO PROPERTY OWNERS ADVISORY SERVICE INC. is now associated with the Law Offices of Gordon McSevney providing a full compliment of legal services to landlords. His blog is a MUST-READ for new and experienced landlords alike. Link to his blog in the "Guest Columnists" section.

Is Being a Student Housing Provider the way to go?

Recession-proof? Bright young adults who care about their future? Parties? What's really going on with student rentals?

Meet other Property Investors in our HELP forum.

The Ontario Landlord Association (OLA) is a province-wide grass-roots organisation for private residential landlords. With YOUR participation, we are creating a unified voice for private landlords throughout Ontario, from large portfolio landlords to single-bedroom basement units. The OLA is promoting and protecting members' interests to national and local government.

When a Government proposes new legislation, it is frequently based upon election manifesto pledges. It is almost impossible to change the Government's mind once it is set, but by being at the heart of decision-making, organisations can influence politicians and civil servants so that any changes are not overly detrimental to their aims and objectives.

Work for us

The OLA is an equal opportunities employer. We are looking for Regional Representatives.

Do you:

  • Believe landlords are providing an essential and valuable service to the community?
  • Think the public perception of landlords could be improved?
  • Want to raise awareness about OLA aims and membership?
  • Want to work flexible part-time hours?

You ideally need to be a landlord, a car and a PC owner, and enjoy attending and organising meetings as well as public speaking.

This role would involve, on average, a total of about 2 days per month, with both daytime and evening work.

Regional Representatives are paid an hourly rate, plus travel and other 'out of pocket' expenses.

If you are interested in becoming a representative please email us stating the area you are interested in and details on how to reply will be sent.