Catch 22 when Investing in Real Estate

A Catch 22 when it comes to real estate investing!

As landlord, we must provide a quiet environment to other tenants in the building or neighborhood. However, what do you do when a tenant doesn’t abide by this law and disturbs other people in a building, or disturbs neighbors to your property? Well, there is nothing you can do, other then warn them, record the incidents, and until you have enough warnings given to them, in writing, via a N5 I believe, then you can finally evict them. But until then, you have to stick it out.

This is because our tenant act doesn't allow us to rectify and remove people right away. The catch 22 in all of this is the fact that as a landlord, by not providing a quiet environment to other tenants or neighbors, you in turn could be sued by the other tenants or neighbors.

So, you have a tenant whom is disturbing the peace and then you have everyone else complaining to you and then possibly suing you. And there is nothing you can do to remedy the situation, hence the catch 22.

I had this exact scenario play out not too long ago which is why I’m bringing this up, where we had tenants constantly causing issues in my 8-unit property. They would fight and be loud, they would run the bath tub until it overflowed and leaked into the restaurant beneath, and time and time again we would go and let them know to please keep it down, or please don’t overflow your bath tub, and the restaurant below was constantly complaining to us about this, and all we could do was try to calm them down and let them know that we are in the process of evicting them, but the process is so slow here in Ontario, that we can’t do anything other then tell them to stop. Oh, sure we could charge them more rent for the damages, but they won’t pay it, or we could just kick them out to the curb, but then that breaks every tenant law imaginable, or we could offer them cash for keys to leave asap, but some want enormous amounts of our hard-earned money.

So how are you as a landlord to abide by these laws, when there are other laws in place that prevent you from abiding by them? The Ontario government is so pro tenant, that is, they favour the tenants’ rights over the landlords, that they have laws that basically contradict each other, pretty dumb right!

So obviously, this all sounds like a headache, and not living your life everyday, but most of the time I do live life everyday due to investing in real estate, these are just some the issues you still have to deal with unfortunately!

The lesson here?

Well it’s to screen your tenants! You can also put safeguards in a lease saying if you break the rules, a fine will ensue. Enforcing the fine will be tough, but a lease is really only there to make people aware. The best way to avoid rowdy tenants? Own nice properties in nice areas, as this will get you good tenants, and then you won’t have to deal with many if any issues! WHAT TO DO NEXT: Enroll in Real Estate Investing Bootcamp