Our business simply wouldn’t run smoothly without Bita. As the Maintenance Manager, she schedules and oversees all of the work our property management clients need done to their properties, from emergency services to full renovations.

From Toronto to Croatia and back again

Bita studied Interior Design at Sheridan College and then moved to Croatia for 11 years. In Croatia, her sister and her opened a language school to teach English, German & Italian. They worked with people in the war-town country that wanted to get back on their feet. Since tourism is a major industry in Croatia, language is really important. Bita’s school taught essential language skills to people looking to rebuild their lives and start a new career. They would also teach English in big companies they had contracts with.

Bita and her sister

The more rewarding part of Bita’s school was the social development projects they undertook voluntarily using their language training skills. This outreach included junior youth programs where the kids would attend for free and learn English while participating in different kinds of activities and trips. For outreach to adults who couldn’t afford the school, volunteers would meet them for coffee and participate in other social activities – all conducted in English – to help them learn the language.

After her Croatian adventure, Bita moved back in 2010, and started working for Highgate in 2012.

Communicates with owners and tenants daily

In her role at Highgate, she communicates with owners regarding any maintenance or repairs required for their rental properties. She also responds to tenants as well – when a tenant sees problem, she will contact the owner and work out a solution. If it is something to do with a leak or a vital service she takes care of it right away (such as a disruption of water or heat). This kind of proactive attention to detail is one of the things that make our property management service so valuable to our clients.

On regular or emergency jobs, she dispatches our maintenance team or licensed technicians for repairs & diagnostics. She usually acts as Project Manager, ensuring that deadlines and standards are met in the performance of the work. She also keeps a close eye on project costs, consulting with property owners each step of the way to keep costs transparent and avoid surprises.

If she doesn’t see that the work is being done, she gets on top of it. She’ll get photos when the work is done and send them to the owner, and enter all project costs directly into the invoicing system so she can make sure they match up with estimates.

Bita’s responsibilities don’t stop with maintenance. Often, property owners need renovations done before renting a property out. Her training in Interior Design (not decoration, but design – that’s an important distinction) enables her to read CAD drawings and communicate client needs to our crew and outside contractors in a way they can efficiently understand.

When asked about her experience at Highgate so far, Bita had this to say. “I really enjoy coming to work and the challenges – they keep me on my toes. I take every situation and turn it into an opportunity to learn, get more experience, and develop myself both in my career and as a person. We all have challenges – the most important thing to me is that I am becoming a better person each day. Dealing with tenants and clients is a great experience in dealing with people, and something that has to be approached with professionalism and sensitivity.”

If you ever have a problem with your rental property, Bita is standing ready to help you fix it. Our clients rest easy knowing that is the case. If you aren’t a client yet, contact us to find out how you can get Highgate – and more importantly Bita – on your team.

A common nightmare scenario for every landlord in Toronto in the GTA renting to strangers is winding up locked in a binding contract with a tenant who is unfit for occupancy. Stories of negative tenant situations often include property damage, unclean living quarters, and in some cases harassment. Rejecting the application of a tenant can be a tricky endeavour, and doing so legally and with tact can be even more challenging. Luckily for landlords, this is a common problem and there are ways to respectfully – and legally – reject an application.

Know what you cannot do

According to Canada’s Human Rights Act of 1985, a landlord cannot reject an applicant based on any of the identified prohibited grounds of discrimination. These include application rejection based on race, origin, skin colour, religion, sex, age, sexual orientation, marital or family status, disability, and pardoned offences. Rejection of a tenant based on these grounds would result in a violation of the Canadian Human Rights Code. Technically, you also cannot require that a tenant give you their Social Insurance Number, but you can still run a credit check without it.

Know what you can do

Thankfully for rental property owners in Ontario, c. 17, s. 10 of Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act of 2006 allows all landlords to take several things into account when considering whether to approve or reject a tenant application. These grounds include income information, credit checks and references, and rental history.

Landlords are not obligated to rent their property to every single applicant, and can reject prospective tenants based on their own concerns, as long as the reasons aren’t breaking Canada’s Human Rights Act. Before rejecting an applicant based on any criteria, it’s important to first ensure that you are doing so according to Residential Tenancies Act and the Human Rights Act in order to avoid any potential legal problems. When turning down an applicant, particularly one that you think may be a problem, be sure to give them a concrete reason (bad credit, for example) and to not elaborate any further.

Treat all applicants equally

In order to choose tenants in a fair, balanced and legal manner, all applications should be completed and processed in the same way. This means that all prospective tenants should have to submit a rental application form that includes information on their job, contact information of supervisor/manager, yearly income, previous address, previous landlord references, government identification, and any other details deemed necessary by the landlord.

Applicants should be contacted within an appropriate window of time following your decision and informed of their approval or rejection. This gives applicants time to seek out other rental opportunities, and keeps the application process fully transparent for all involved parties. This process should ideally be done in writing in order to keep a viable record – email works perfectly for these kinds of communications.

Every landlord deserves to have ideal tenants, but it’s important to keep in mind the rights of applicants and legal repercussions when deciding to reject a prospective tenant. By knowing rights and laws, treating all tenants equally and being fair and transparent, you’ll be sure to attract the right tenant without the risk of a lawsuit.

If you want to properly screen, approve, and reject your rental applicants, your best partner is a property management company like Highgate. We know all of the legal ins and outs and will handle the tenant approval process professionally and transparently. Contact us today to find out more.

The day has finally come that all rental property owners have been dreading – the Residential Tenancies Act is being tightened in Ontario to make it almost entirely tenant-centric with the Rental Fairness Act. The only possible positive is the introduction of a standardized lease which will make it harder for bad tenants to wiggle out of tenancy agreements, but it is a slim silver lining.

No rental increases above Ontario government guidelines – including utilities

While it was expected that the Ontario government would roll back the 1991 rule which exempted buildings built after 1991 from rent control guidelines, the Ontario government has added an additional burden for landlords in that you can now not increase rent to allow for increased utility costs. For smaller landlords with single-dwelling properties, this means that most utilities – especially hydro – should no longer be included in rent.

For owners of multi-tenant properties where units are not individually metered, this is highly problematic and doesn’t seem to have any solution, apart from retrofits to submeter the property, applying to the Landlord & Tenant board for an above-guideline increase, and lobbying your MPP.

Applying for an above-guideline increase to the Landlord & Tenant Board

It is worth noting that an above-guideline increase can be no more than 3% above the guideline, which will not account for the majority of utility increases. Additionally, the tenant must agree to it. This makes an above-guideline increase hardly worth the trouble, but if your tenant is agreeable, 3% is better than nothing – especially if you have a tenant who is in your property for the long haul.

First, refer to our post about dealing with the Landlord & Tenant Board. Secondly, you will have to use the N10 form that you can find on this page.

Moving into your own property just got more expensive

Thanks to the small number of landlords who were using N12 forms (Notice to End Tenancy because a landlord, purchaser or family member requires the unit) for any excuse to get a bad tenant out rather than their intended purpose, moving into your own unit or selling it just got more difficult. You now need to offer another unit to your tenants or compensate them with a month’s rent, on top of the usual N12 requirements of 60 days notice (and notice must be given until the end of the month – for example if you generated the N12 on October 15, the tenant has until December 30th to move out, not December 15). Under the new guidelines, the landlord or family member has to also live in the unit for at least a year.

This move will only penalize landlords who actually want to use the N12 as intended – bad actors will continue to abuse it and will happily pay an extra month’s rent and risk going through a Landlord & Tenant Board hearing if a former tenant sees the unit back up for rental at a higher price in a few months and goes to the trouble of complaining to the Landlord & Tenant Board about it.

Why the Rental Fairness Act was implemented

There were a number of landlords in Toronto and the GTA that used the 1991 rule in the past year to raise rents well above guidelines, and this led to a series of investigative news reports which highlighted both the 1991 rule and the provision for landlords to take over the unit for personal use as loopholes a small number of landlords were using to either raise rent by high percentages or claim that they were evicting the tenant for personal use of the unit when they really weren’t.

Despite the fact that this does not describe the behaviour of the majority of landlords in Toronto and the GTA (and certainly not our clients), the Ontario government caved in to public pressure and implemented the Rental Fairness Act to stop these practices without offering additional resources to landlords, which they could have in the form of streamlining applications to the Landlord & Tenant Board.

How a Property Management Company can help landlords

Highgate has a proud, long history of managing and selling investment and rental properties in Toronto and the GTA. Before you consider selling your rental property because you think it isn’t worth the hassle, get a free consultation with us. We’ll be very straight with you as to whether or not it is worth holding on to your property, and manage it above and beyond the requirements of the Rental Fairness Act if it is worth keeping – all while keeping an eye on your bottom line. If you decide to sell, we happen to be Realtors as well, and will give you service tailored for investment properties. Contact us today to find out why now is the best time to consider a property management company.

Resources:

Landlords who evict tenants for their own use will have to provide compensation, Toronto Star, April 27 2017

What landlords need to know about the Ontario Landlord & Tenant Board, Highgate Properties Blog, March 2017