The landlords of this province are having a very hard time trying to provide reasonable housing for their tenants. The main problem is the Landlord and Tenant Board, which is very poorly named, because it is so heavily loaded in favour of the tenants, it should be called, the Tenant’s Board, because of the assistance they get in avoiding paying rent and eviction.

This is widely recognized by landlords, lawyers, police and any other authority involved, even the courts. The landlords of this province sure would be much happier if the findings of this board were equal for both parties involved. The tenants are given free council as to how to avoid paying rent. The 14-day notice (N4) that has to be given to start the process is evidence of much of the problem. It is a joke and tenants smile when receiving it.

I am told by people moving from Alberta that it is not taken lightly there and means what it says. We are told that at the end of the 14  days, if the rent is not paid in full the authorities see that they are removed. Here that is when the process starts to punish the wrong parties. The landlord has to pay $150 to get a hearing date that could be a month further away. The landlord is not the problem, it is the tenant, and it is all caused by the tenant, so why should the landlord be punished this way?

In 1996 there was a meeting called in Huntsville to address some of these problems that did get a lot of attention. Early in February of this year there was a letter sent to our member of parliament and also a letter forwarded by Mr. Miller to the Minister of Housing addressing some of the problems caused by what seems to be poor legislation on this government’s part. The legislation that is now being used came into effect early in 1997 and is worse than it was before in this regard. The horror stories told by the landlords we talked to are all of similar content, some much worse than others. We hear of bad landlords, but there are more bad tenants causing them to take action.

At the hearings there are duty councillors available to assist the tenant in avoiding rental payments. One, we are told, was advised that if they were still in the apartment they could not be sued for arrears of rent. This is what we landlords have to deal with.

Part II, Item 10 of the current legislation reads as follows: “In selecting prospective tenants, landlords may use, in the manner prescribed in the regulations made under the Human Rights Code, income information, credit checks, credit references, rental history, guarantees or other similar business practices as prescribed in those regulations.”

There is a list of bad tenants that landlords can use and we are sure more names will be added as they cause this action to be made.

Vic Cormack
Huntsville