Population and Housing

[danbrotherston]

I actually prefer landlord...

There is an inherent power imbalance (through financial resources, legal resources, and through the renter being beholden to the landlord for their home) between typical residential renters and landlords. The terms make that imbalance clear. I don't think changing the words would eliminate the power imbalance so I don't think we should change the words until we remove that power imbalance.

Well one thing I would point is that in Ontario right now part of the power imbalance comes from the fact that tenants cannot, in practice, use the Tribunal to deal with landlord problems. Why? Because they’re massively backlogged, and in order to prevent the entire system from collapsing they are prioritizing rental arrears hearings. This is necessary because if it becomes known that paying rent is optional, everything falls apart completely, in a way that it doesn’t if some tenants/landlords take advantage of and mistreat their landlords/tenants.

If there was an express process to force ongoing payment of rent, then those who are taking advantage of the system to avoid paying rent would be removed from the market (or shape up), and then tenants (in particular) could actually get action when they file an application against a bad landlord. Overall, this would lead to an improvement in conditions for everybody (except for the freeloaders).

The rules in Ontario are actually pretty fair for the most part. They could be improved, but rules on things like rent control and notice periods are reasonably well designed. The problem is that nothing can be enforced promptly; in this specific area, this is a massive boon, not to tenants in general, but to thieves (theft of services is still theft), because the theft continues every day that the parties are waiting for the hearing; and to bad landlords. All a bad tenant has to do to stay in a property for free is cause delays; and a bad landlord knows it will take a long time for a tenant to get a ruling against them.

"Rules on rent control are well designed"...I'd argue that they aren't. Rent control is good in theory. In practice, it doesn't apply to a large number of rentals, and more, it is pretty easy for landlords to get around. This happened to my grandma. Her building hiked the rent of all the tenants 5-20%. IANAL but I felt that the justifications were invalid. They claimed "improvements" had been made, but these improvements were just regular maintenance (e.g., repairing leaking plumbing).

The tenants went to a tribunal, had a hearing. But the landlord is represented by a professional lawyer who understands the LTA thoroughly. The tenants do not. They argued the rent increase was unfair, because the landlord doesn't maintain the building very well so it should be cheaper--completely the wrong tactic.

The rent increase for 50 low income individuals was rubber stamped.

This is what I mean by there is a power imbalance.

And before you suggest that I should have helped them...my mom did try. Some of them wanted to withhold rent payments for things not being fixed in the building, which would have only gotten them evicted. (There's a flip side right...in most transactions, I can withhold payment for non-performance of services...but not for rent).

I would argue that a better rent control scheme would be full rent stabilization for all units, and ZERO exceptions to increasing rent at inflation. A landlord is responsible for properly saving for and funding maintenance, and they can only raise rent in order to make improvements with the express written consent of the tenants affected by the improvements and subsequent increases.

Of course, now you're going to have buildings which are not maintained, and now you have to set maintenance standards. Which can be problematic, but it is something we already do in condo buildings through the reserve fund study (although it isn't actually enforced that those repairs are done, only that money is collected for them).

Realistically, it's not a policy area I've studied extensively, I just know I have experienced it as a tenant both first and second hand, and have always felt cheated by my landlord. (I chose to buy a house and leave our apartment rather than take the landlord to tribunal after they illegally raised MY rent...but that was a privilege I had--that I wouldn't necessarily even have today).