raindropsandroses

Yes exactly Dbd, my husband is at least saved by having a job with a popular local firm, so I am seen as the Lady MacBeth character scheming on the sidelines whereas he's very well liked.

Lion, the South Shore is Chester, Bridgewater, Lunenburg, Liverpool, White Point et al. No, definitely not a rough area, quite the opposite in fact!

Siouxie

Perhaps they need better letting agents or agreements for vacation rental properties. The property I rented had to be paid by credit card - with a renters insurance required also to be paid by credit card.. failure to clean the property at the end of the stay to the required standard would (contractually) culminate in a fine / cleaning fee / penalty of up to $200. Additionally, each property listed on the website I used had amenities with a description of what was guaranteed and what wasn't - inevitably there was a 'get out clause' for tv and internet connectivity (and a reminder that cell phones don't always work in remote locations). Some owners even sold 'no tv or internet' as a positive spin for 'get back to nature' when they couldn't provide it. The agency were the ones you contacted if there were any issues or problems - although the owner did phone me at the one I stayed in to tell me to help myself to a bottle of wine!

I researched extensively on dozens of websites and I'm surprised to hear of some that allow claw back on unhappy punters.. also surprised to hear that they don't make much money from them, I couldn't find one under $980 a week in September for 3 people - and acquaintances I know who own rental properties charge in the region of $1600 to $2600 a WEEK for lakeside /waterside cottages in the summer season.. a little less in off season - (there are far more expensive ones available too) - and they are fully booked from mid April through to the end of October and even November/December for the 4 season ones! Regardless, if the cottage / accommodation had air conditioning there was often an extra charge during the height of the season (resulting in a higher rental for specific weeks)... some required a further fee if you wanted to use the woodstove (not allowed in most for insurance reasons) or gas furnace (higher rate of rental for the week again, basically). Hot water was provided on a timer or with an 'on demand' gas water heater.. so the utilities really shouldn't be that high if precautions are taken?

I suppose it really does depend who you use and what the standard of accommodation provided is, when it comes to Vacation rentals.

BristolUK

Raindrops' experiences seem the sort of thing I'd previously only heard of in Ontario.

I seem to have had it better (mostly) here in Moncton until the last couple of years when vacancy rates went up because of a lot of apartment building.

I've been ill all day, so I'll write more tomorrow.

Lion Heart

Interesting what Siouxie mentioned about renters (tenant) insurance. Whilst looking for rentla properties on Kijiji and Craigs List etc I did see quite a few listings for rentals (not holiday lets, normal houses) and they specified that renters must have tenant insurance.

It stood out to me as I'd never heard of such a thing, certainly not in the UK.

Having an insurance in place seems logical, but if the renter buys it themselves then surely a landlord can't claim on it. So I assume the landlord buys it, but the tenant has to pay up front for it, and that's what they mean by must have - i.e. you must buy it from me, i.e. it must be in place?

This should help stop the issues with bad tenants, or not stop them so much as cover the costs?

Lion Heart

Doesn't New Brunswick have the stupid law on rentals where if you don't live in part of it yourself you pay both local and federal tax, so essential double council tax?

Is it still viable to make money paying double council tax, as on a triplex that can be a lot!!!

raindropsandroses

Tenant insurance is like contents insurance, it covers the tenants personal belongings and theoretically means the tenants can't claim from the landlord if their personal possessions get stolen, for example.

Landlords need separate landlord insurance, which covers the building itself, such as in case of fire. I forgot to add landlord insurance into our coats we posted, sorry about that.
Landlords insurance is expensive and doesn't cover a lot sadly, hence why most landlords end up to cover damages out of pocket.

If you want to have rental properties as your primary source of income, you need to be confident that you will be able to collect enough rent each month, after paying anything you have to cover, to be able to pay your own bills, buy groceries etc.

That's the part I would run screaming from as there are no guarantees. If you want to move here, work for a couple of years, get to know Canada, NS and the area, and then go into having rental properties as a sideline to your primary source of income, then that's an entirely different, and far less risky option.

The simple fact of the matter is that when you're a landlord there will be months when you're making a loss, when you have to use other money to subsidise your rental operations. That's not great if being a landlord is a sideline, but its disastrous if its your main source of income. That's how people get sucked underwater, and its a far too easy trap to fall into.

Bristol, I had heard that NS is becoming very similar to Ontario in that respect.
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Lion Heart

If you use a rental agency isn't it their resposibility to ensure that the property is left in the same condition as it when it was moved into, and if it's not to withhold the deposit or even take actions against the tenant?

My parents own a rental here in the UK and employ an agency. They find the tenants, photograph the property before they move in, get the tenants to sign all of the relevant paperwork, and then handle it at the end if the tenants have damaged the property.

They had it where a couple of rooms needed redecorating, nothing bad. That was removed from the tenants deposit repayment at the end of the term, and they arranged for the two rooms to be repainted.

Surely there must be some protection for landlords? It can't be the case (?) where its Wild West and a tenant can do whatever they like with no consequences what-so-ever?

It's upsetting to hear that such a high percentage (???) of Canadian's can potentially be complete assholes that purposefully don't pay rent and smash their rentals up for a laugh. Not the type of people I would want to call a friend!!!

I thought Canadian's were generally meant to be nice!! Yes, you'll always get the odd bad apple, but you'd think it would be a relatively smaller percentage, like here in the UK?

raindropsandroses

Yes it is the property management companies problem, but they'll just get contractors in to repair any damages and get it ready again, and then bill you for it.

Damage deposits are limited by law to a maximum of 50% of one month's rent. So on average $250-$300. Yes you can take the tenants to the small claims court, but if they don't have the money to pay you back then you get nowhere as such matters are very poorly enforced, and the Judge just asks you how you expect them to pay you back.

Landlords are not supported by law, the tenancy board or any of the systems in NS, we need much better regulations, or at least real life enforcement.

Are Canadians nice? I wouldn't say they were any nicer than anywhere else. Its the inherant and insidious cultural values you need to look at to work that out.
For example, google the percentage of Canadians who think immigration should be stopped and immigrants made to leave. From memory its about 52%.
So the majority of Canadians don't want immigrants here. Sure they may be nice to your face, but Canada is far from as tolerant and welcoming as it would like to be perceived to be.

Being an immigrant anywhere is hard, and you have to fight to carve out a life for yourself, it's not easy. As I've mentioned, we've lived in a lot of different countries, some are easier than others.

Nova Scotia has its charming "Come From Away" issues and prejudices, there was a thread about it recently on here.

I love living in Nova Scotia, and have made some great friends here, but settling in Canada hasn't been easy. If you want easy and welcoming, move to Finland.

As with anything going into it with your eyes wide open and having a realistic view will help enormously.

I honestly don't think any one country is better to live in than any other. They all have their positives and negatives, you just have to choose your poison and pick the one whose negatives are tolerable to you personally and whose positives work for you.

dbd33

Is there really double tax? I doubt that. The property is taxed, the owner is liable for the tax. If the owner has a tenant then some of the rent money goes to pay the tax, if there's no tenant the owner pays all the tax; same as with any other properties people own. I don't see anything wrong with that; the municipality provides services to the property, someone has to pay for them, it's not the government's concern whether, or not, people choose to live in their houses.

dbd33

Many of the people with whom I work in Ontario are landlords so I hear a lot about bailiffs and small claims court and vandalism and all of that. II makes me sob like a crocodile. Here the tenants are largely irrelevant to the landlords, it's the capital appreciation on the property that matters and, when the market's right, the tenants will be out on their arses. What sounds very different from NS is that everyone involved here is an immigrant; it's only student rentals that involve actual Canadians.

BristolUK

Ah, you've done your homework

Yes, totally possible to make money. The thing with the double tax is you build it in to the rent charged. Housing costs are so low here, though, that the rent is still affordable.

I had a duplex - 1 bed down and a 2 bed up. There was a basement (storage and laundry) and a deck for downstairs (obviously ) and an attic (storage) and balcony up. Very good state, on bus routes, central, off street parking, very short walk to a nice park and tenants could have pets. I priced it above the average rent but worth it.

For 8 years it went really well. The questions prospective tenants would ask made me wonder about other landlords. How much was parking? It's included! Were the washer and dryer coin operated? You're kidding! It seemed some landlords were charging extra for this sort of thing.

People viewing absolutely loved the place and in most cases wanted it straight away. I was casual and never did the references, employee checks. I had done some checks on their names before showing them the place and in one case came across a newspaper report of someone with a string of convictions. But I took people at face value and to be honest, I never had any impression they had experienced anything different. It just seemed the way.

I didn't have to routinely do clean-ups/repairs on changeovers because the departing tenants left it as good as they got it. One tenant even offered to clean the other unit for an incoming tenant she was so satisfied with everything!

I did have one tenant who was repeatedly behind with her rent but she always came through with it. I had another who who seemed to have a boyfriend finding a place for her - he paid her rent - but from information discovered later was her pimp and between them they had at least 5 different identities. That kind of told me that checks were not much of a guarantee of anything and Raindrops' more strict approach seems to back that up.

But I had a great 8 years. The duplex cost $99k in 2005. Tenancy changeovers saw no periods of vacancies. Tenants paid their own electricity/heating. I typically made $8k to $8.5k a year after all expenses, including the double tax. A pretty good return on the initial investment.

In all that time I had one eviction process start but it became obvious she had left. I was later to discover she and her pimp were convicted of manslaughter after she lured someone into an ambush.

The tenant who was constantly behind in rent disappeared. Her non payment of rent on time didn't ring any alarms with me because it had been normal for at least 4 years. That was a big repair and removal of garbage bill. I lost money that year.

Legal action wouldn't have got me anywhere. You need to be successful in small claims - where input of both parties is needed. There would be the cost of the action as well as tracking them down. But even if you win, enforcement is another separate legal action with more legal costs. It seems that 'small claims' action doesn't work for disappearing tenants. From knowledge of her, she'd not have had any means to enforce anyway.

At this point there had been loads of apartment buildings going up and city vacancy rates that had previously been around 2% had risen to 11%.

It became harder to replace tenants and I had to ask a more average rent and suddenly I was getting nuisance tenants, although by now I had the security of a happy downstairs tenant, so I was only having problems with those upstairs.

I had an old couple who appeared to be used to a building with an on-site caretaker. They were overjoyed to finally have a place more their own but they behaved as if they still expected everything done for them. "Can you come and change the light bulb".....

They also bothered the downstairs tenant so I was fielding complaints from him too. It all went downhill from then.

I decided to sell, something I was going to do anyway, just a couple of years later.
Then came this - No good deed

Because of the high vacancy rates, the rental market crashed. Long story short, I sold the place for $69k. I could have held on but I wanted rid of the place. It was driving me up the wall to the point that every time the phone rang I'd think "what is it now?"

So...even with that capital loss eating into the income it gave over the 11 years, it was a better return than having the initial sum sitting in a high interest account.

If you're more business like about it than I was, if you're handy with DIY stuff and you have your own transport so as to be able to get to the property without having to consider the weather, make more inspections etc...and maybe have someone to share the responsibility when things don't go right, I'd say there's plenty of opportunity to make money. But maybe not in Nova Scotia. Or Ontario.

I believe Howefamily has rental experience in NS and someone else on BE has Ontario experience.

dbd33

How does the double tax work; is the property tax levied at twice the rate when the property is unoccupied?

BristolUK

I believe NB is the only province to do this. Technically it's not double tax, there's the Province amount and the Municipal amount. I don't remember which but one of them is rebated if you live in the property. It's just that the two amounts are actually very similar it's more or less double.

I don't see a lot wrong with it when applied to second homes - like 'the cottage' - but I don't see that as being the same as somewhere for permanent housing.

The cost of services for the property don't double because someone other than the owner lives there.
Yes. The owner actually has to live in it to avoid that.

Collie

EEK - a real nightmare. Of course the other option is to put your $$ into REITs - apartments, malls, industrial, medical facilities, whatever you like - which gives zero hassle, some income, and you should get the capital growth too. Of course running costs will eat into it, but when we looked at it a few years ago it made financial sense to us...

BristolUK

I just realised what that sounds like. They wanted to leave the collective and live more independently but they still wanted the benefits.