Former Lancastrian

After reading in this story I have decided never to become a landlord or buy a property to rent out.
'Way too big of a family for the house': Renters denied B.C. home take their case to Human Rights Tribunal - British Columbia - CBC News

What a mess and I can see both sides but if given a side to pick I would be on the landlord's side due to the fact it appears the regulations and Human Rights are somewhat at odds with each other.

Some rather differing views in the comments section.

GermanytoCanada

As a UK landlord, we had a similar issue a couple of years ago where a family applied to rent our property which included 5 adults and 3 children over 3 generations. Despite it being a good size (by UK standards) 4 bedroom house, we took the view that the resulting wear and tear on our property was likely to be higher than average and we would prefer fewer people living there. Whilst I see the difficulties faced by some larger families in renting property, as a private landlord, I have to look after my asset to the best of my ability.

In the scenario in the article, I can't help but feel that the landlord was being a bit too honest about his reasoning! It isn't that difficult to find a reason not to rent to certain people and avoiding a courtroom.

A friend of mine recently returned to the UK from Germany, serving notice on their Indian family tenants in their Uk home. Due to the culinary tastes of the tenants, everything in the house had to be replaced due to the smell costing many thousands of pounds (kitchen was replaced, every bit of wood, every room re-plastered, all,flooring replaced etc). Putting the house back to a liveable condition took two months. As the tenants' deposit was only 1 month of rent, our friends spent more bringing the property back to square one than they recovered in over two years of renting it out. Their letting agent also helpfully pointed out (at this stage) that they had seen several instances of this happening.

However, if they ever wished to rent it out again, they would not be able to refuse another Indian family from renting it (without being a bit smarter and disclosing a different reason).

I am firmly with the landlord in this article. Why should he risk his savings and investment if he feels that a risk exists?

DandNHill

We’re landlords. The tenancy board protects the tenants to the point that the landlord has very few rights... whatever country or province you’re in.

I completely agree with the landlords feelings, however I also have 4 kids and would have been mortified if a landlord had judged our family too large for his unit.

I think it depends which side of the fence you’re on!

Former Lancastrian

But should there even be a fence? We all know housing is a need but show me anywhere in Legislation in any Province/Territory or even Federal Legislation where its a RIGHT. If it was a right then perhaps we wouldn't have homeless people bearing in mind several choose to live on the street and have refused shelter. If it was also a right there wouldn't be vacant condos and houses sitting empty.

So shouldn't the Governments be responsible for building sufficient housing for larger families rather than individuals building homes that can possibly house the larger families?

Too many variables hence no interest in becoming a landlord too much hassle in my opinion whereas others do quite well when renting out properties.

BristolUK

I think landlords are generally okay in NB - rent can be increased after first year, with no restrictions - but then you don't do it if tenants can go cheaper elsewhere. A month's deposit is allowable.

Where they are let down is periods of notice required when you don't get rent. Virtually guaranteed to be at least two months down by the time you can take back control.


I was one of four boys and the six of us were always in three bedroom houses.

I think, as a landlord, there's always going to be a situation you're not so comfortable about. Pet related. Very young child. Smokers. Squabbling siblings.

But they are normal housing situations and to me it's something you have to accept if you're going to be a landlord. I did.

You just never knew what you'd get. For every category or 'type' of tenant you'd get awful and great.

GermanytoCanada

I think, as a landlord, there's always going to be a situation you're not so comfortable about. Pet related. Very young child. Smokers. Squabbling siblings.

But they are normal housing situations and to me it's something you have to accept if you're going to be a landlord. I did.

You just never knew what you'd get. For every category or 'type' of tenant you'd get awful and great.[/QUOTE]

I don't think you have to accept these 'normal housing situations' as a landlord. I pick and choose whether investments and pensions utilise high or low risk funds. Surely the same principles apply to any investment you make? If I had no control over picking tenants that I wanted, a for sale sign would be outside the house pretty quickly.

The profit potential from renting property isn't high enough to justify the risk.

Of course across every 'category' of tenant there will be a full range of people in terms of tenant suitability and that is risk you have to accept as a landlord. But different categories have different risk profiles and not managing that is simply poor business.

BristolUK

But if the law prevents you from discriminating you do. It's going to vary but sometimes, for example, you can't refuse tenants with kids.

Sometimes the law might allow you to discriminate - for example not allow smoking. But then if you restrict the market so much you may cutting your nose to spite your face.

Perhaps you spread the risk too. What about deciding that a family of 6 is more likely to be a long term tenant so while wear and tear might be greater than usual, you can balance that against fewer periods of vacancies due to tenant turnarounds.

Why not make an adjustment to deposit and or rent to neutralise the wear and tear aspect?

It depends what you're after. I didn't buy my rental property as an investment, I bought it to generate an income enabling retirement.

That rather depends on what you compare it to. I had a steady return of 8% after all expenses per year over 11 years from my original outlay.

But simply refusing what you deem a high risk isn't really managing it is it. Managing it would be making appropriate adjustments. Like the high risk/low risk investments and spreading risk by investing more in lower risk while investing less in a high risk venture.

dave_j

My wife has my FIL's written life story that includes a description of childhood in the chain making region of Cradley in the Black Country. His description of living in crowded conditions illustrates that six people living in a three bedroom house is not only possible but spacious.

The question the landlord has to answer is when considering tenants is, 'Do I feel that this family will behave responsibly and not damage my asset' The size of this family is not large but it's their potential behaviour that's in question, and like it or not the larger the family the more the potential for damage.

Seeking to involve the courts does not make for a comfortable future relationship and perhaps the landlord was right to reject but for the wrong reason. On the other hand the woman may have seen this route as a last resort, I doubt we'll know. In either case I expect the house is let by now. The landlord could have contacted the previous landlord and obtained a critique of their past behaviour and used this to accept or turn down their application, perhaps he did....

scrubbedexpat091

Renting in certain city's has become difficult add in having kids and it's even more difficult.

Canada seems to rely far too much on individual landlords who may only own 1 unit.

In most US city's I am familiar with for example most rentals are owned by companies who own many units and rentals are dedicated to renting. Its their business.

One reason we rent where we rent as the owner is a major developer in the city and owns something like 3,000 units.

They keep rents more reasonable vs units owned by a private individual.

We pay 1,550 the same size unit in our building with the private landlords avg 2,300/month.

Our landlord is also pet and child friendly.

BristolUK

Certainly there's a potential for more damage than, say, a 2 plus 2 family.

But I'd wager the potential difference between two lads renting compared to most other couple variants was far greater. I can't imagine turning down two male tenants, preferring alternative tenants, getting to court until there was some form of homophobia being alleged.

I would expect the reverse. Every tenant who expressed an opinion to me (which was most) preferred the individual.

Possibly an owner/business with multiple units doesn't 'miss' a rent payment as much as a private individual and maybe they are more geared up to having maintenance people they can immediately call upon when the need arises.

But if you're paying more rent to the owner of a single unit you're probably getting something 'nicer' for any number of reasons with the owner being even more interested in protecting a single investment rather than a small part of multiple investments.

scilly

BC Social Services could also become involved .............. it seems from events in the fairly recent past that they do not like children of different sex and above a certain age (toddler) sharing a room. If this happens and they discover it ........ the parents would be found at fault.

DandNHill

I don't think you have to accept these 'normal housing situations' as a landlord. I pick and choose whether investments and pensions utilise high or low risk funds. Surely the same principles apply to any investment you make? If I had no control over picking tenants that I wanted, a for sale sign would be outside the house pretty quickly.

The profit potential from renting property isn't high enough to justify the risk.

Of course across every 'category' of tenant there will be a full range of people in terms of tenant suitability and that is risk you have to accept as a landlord. But different categories have different risk profiles and not managing that is simply poor business.[/QUOTE]

Not that easy to sell a property with tenants in situ.

BristolUK

I think GtoC meant that they would no longer want to own a rental if they couldn't reject a certain category of tenant. So difficult to sell,or not, they'd still sell.

When I tried to sell the rental the first time - a few years ago for a potential move to NS - a buyer's offer was conditional on one of the two tenants being evicted. I'm not sure if they wanted rid of that particular tenant or the snakes.

jerryhung

On what grounds can you reject tenants?

GermanytoCanada

Our rented property was bought as our home and not with a view to renting it out. As such it has a higher end finish than I would have specified had it been intended for the rental market. The costs of rectification work/replacement inside the property are higher as a result, substantially increasing the financial risk of having bad tenants. Unfortunately the rental yield achieved on 4 bed detached homes in the UK is in most cases under 5% and at that level, I am not willing (and don't need) to accept a lot of risk.

You are quite right that I balance that with a higher risk of having the property empty more often/for longer, but that is a risk I accept and I am happy to fund the mortgage on an empty property if required (it has only been empty for 2 months over the past 4 years so far).

I would love to be in a position to use higher rent/deposit to 'neutralize the
wear and tear aspect'. Whilst this strategy is effective on lower value properties, when the costs of rectification work are potentially massive, a higher rent/deposit will only go a very small way towards neutralizing the risk.

Of course refusing 'high risk' tenants is a management strategy. Spreading risk across high/low risk investments is fine providing the higher risk strategy involves higher potential gains. In this case, the financial benefit of accepting higher risk tenants is minimal (potentially getting a tenant in faster and who may stay longer, reducing re-letting costs). If a lower risk tenant is always around the corner (which they are in this area as demand is high and supply of housing low), why accept a higher risk tenant for little/no gain? This isn't fund management where the revenue difference between high/low risk funds is enormous.

However most of the posts on this topic relate to financial risk. When living in another country and working long hours, it is a massive PITA when anything goes wrong or needs fixing. The time and hassle risk is of more concern to me than the financial risk.

From a discrimination point of view, the law of course dictates what you can and can't openly discriminate on. However, it isn't that difficult to find reasons for not accepting a tenant if the real reason would class as discrimination.

I am glad to hear that you clearly take a more scientific approach to this than just accepting 'family situations' and the baggage that comes with it (which what I wrongly took from your first post)!