Renting a Home, Part 3: Know Your Tenant Rights
In the last two parts of this 3-part blog, massage therapist Rebecca Naugler gave criteria, websites, and a tracking template to help with your rental search and then a bunch of tips and tricks for finding the ideal place. This week, she concludes her series with warnings about your tenant rights and moving too quickly with your lease.
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First, know your rights! I’m very grateful to Irene for pointing me towards information on my tenant rights. I relied heavily on this website: https://landlordselfhelp.com/podcast/updated-n12-terminating. I mention this because I felt we had a really good relationship with our landladies. However, they were either uninformed or they chose to see if they could get away without following the guidelines in the Residential Tenancies Act. They tried giving us an illegal Termination of Tenancy letter (they didn’t have a buyer that was going to use it for themselves, nor their kids or parents) and they didn’t offer a compensation payment equivalent to one month’s rent (I sent them the same link I gave here and this requirement is stately clearly there). They didn’t push back when we cited the Residential Tenancies Act and linked to the website, but we had to advocate for ourselves. They ended up paying us the compensation payment and we were very grateful because the move had lots of unexpected costs. Since it wasn’t our idea to move, we hadn’t budgeted for these expenses.
I know for a fact that some landlords are taking advantage of the current rental market. I have an acquaintance that had their tenant leave. They wanted to ask for no less than $2600 for their rental to make sure costs were covered. The landlord listed the space for $3000 to see if they would get any takers. They did also tell me that it was more important to them to get the right person than it was to get the extra money. My recommendation is to not totally rule something out because it’s out of your price range. Take a shot and send an email asking if they would be negotiable for a great tenant. Attach your reference letters and mention anything else that shows you’re a responsible and lucrative tenant. I mentioned in my letter that we took care of most of the minor routine maintenance over the duration of our tenancy. Also, if they rent to a family, they need standard Landlord’s Insurance; if they rent to students, they need commercial-level insurance, which may be a different premium cost. Ask a property insurance expert for advice if you think it will help both you and your prospective landlord.
Finally, we did (or didn’t do) one thing that I do regret. We found a place that would work for us and because places were being rented so quickly, we signed a lease without first checking on applications that we had felt better about but hadn’t heard back from yet. Specifically, there were two houses that might have been a better fit for us. We loved the places when we saw them and we felt we made a good impression. I wish we’d given these two places a quick call before we signed our lease here, because we were told in both cases that we had been one of their top applicants. I would have liked the chance to ask them if they were going to offer us the tenancy.
I know finding the best place to rent can be hard, but you can get through it! If you have questions, feel free to contact Irene and she’ll either answer herself or send your questions to me. Best of luck and I hope that you end up finding joy in your new home.
Restore Massage Therapy is based in the south end of Guelph, Ontario and is owned and operated by Rebecca Naugler, RMT. Rebecca has been providing caring, therapeutic massage since 2000. To book an appointment, contact Rebecca at rebecca@restorermt.ca or visit http://restorermt.janeapp.com/