‍

Hello Openroom, I read about you on CBC - which I find generally slants stories in favour of tenants these days. There needs to be more stories from landlords.

My message to all tenants is - we are not your enemy!

Our Story

My husband and I have been small landlords since the mid 1980s. Knowing what I know now, I would have never gotten into this business nor would I recommend it to anyone who thinks it’s an easy way to make money. I should have just put my money in the bank and watched it grow at about 1% a year, and I would at least have some peace of mind.

While I have only one recent story to relate that seriously put a bad taste in my mouth regarding tenants, dealing with individuals who think that the work you do or the sacrifices you make to put a roof over their heads has little or no value is frustrating.

In 2021 we decided to sell a small house we had owned as a rental for 9 years. We had always had a good relationship with our tenants. They seemed to understand that we had the right to sell the home. (Learn more about How a Landlord Can End a Tenancy from the Landlord and Tenant Board). We worked all the showings around their schedule. We foolishly accepted an offer from a house flipper who misrepresented themselves as a buyer who was going to live in the home. When our tenants found out about this, they seized on that information and demanded we pay them $13,000 to leave the home. The buyer could not sign the necessary paperwork attesting that they were going to live in the home and they did not want to take on the tenants. This put us in a difficult position. Our realtor recommended that we negotiate with the tenants. In the end, we paid them $9000 to get out of the house so the sale could close on time and no further issues (with the buyer) would ensue.

About our Realtor

I am still seething about all of it. To be 100% transparent - since our realtor got us into the mess - they actually paid the $9000 to the tenant (they took it out of their commission). But what bothers me the most is that these tenants - who were perfectly nice to us for about 4 years - turned on us like a pack of wolves and demanded “cash for keys” just because they knew they could. As seniors, we had decided we didn’t want to own and run this property anymore - but these people (in their 30s) - looked at us as some kind of ATM just there to be exploited by them.

These days, we have mostly good tenants (we are small landlords with about 10 tenants now in three buildings). I am very careful about who we rent to and vet everyone as best I can. We are not wealthy people. We offer a service (a home), and expect that to be respected. I wouldn’t mind a little respect myself. But it doesn’t always work that way. We have always been good landlords who do our best to accommodate our tenants’ needs, stay on top of maintenance and make repairs as needed when issues arise.

But to be honest - I have said over and over again - to a tenant - every landlord is evil incarnate - while every tenant is a victim.

Thinking about Retirement

We came out of that problem relatively unscathed. But now as we look to sell our buildings in the near future, I am awake some nights worrying about what our tenants will try and do to us (financially or otherwise), as we try to move on from this business and into a quiet retirement. There is a lot of information out there about renters who game the system, turn on their landlords, demand financial payouts to leave (and sometimes don’t even leave!) - and how the LTB is virtually useless these days. I genuinely feel for tenants, I do. I mean, where is there to go? There are virtually no options if you are not making a good salary - and I would say - at least half of our tenants are long-term renters whose rents are way, WAY below market value.

__________________________________

This Opinion Contribution was sent in to Openroom by a Guest Author.

__________________________________

‍About Opinion Contributions:

Openroom seeks out the best stories around our community to elevate their voice. Each Opinion article is sent in by a genuine Openroom Community member.

The views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the text are of the Guest Author, and do not necessarily represent the opinions of Openroom. Read more about our Opinion Contributions.

__________________________________

Enjoyed this and want more? Send us a note with your feedback, a 🙌, or suggestions on what else we can write about! You can reach us at hello@openroom.com.