Coming to live and work in Canada in 3-4 months and have so many questions. It will be myself and my partner and our two cats and dogs. Could anyone help me with some questions?

1. How easy is it to rent a house with animals?
2. how do I get money from UK to Canada?
3. How do I get a credit rating and a credit card etc?
4. How long does it take from viewing a property on rental to being able to move in?
5. How long does shipping house stuff from UK take?
6. How do you get to know people in Toronto when youa re new?
7. I want to be able to commute to work via public transport to University TTC station within 30 mins but have reasonable rent and space can anyone recommend an area so I can focus my search?
8. Any tips on the move?

Thanks in advance for your help

I don't think there's a University ttc station. Where will you be working?

How did a "is Canada what you'd hoped for" poll get attached to a bunch of Toronto questions on this thread

Centre of the bleedin' universe, innit? What's good for Toronto is good for America and all that.

I will be working at the OPG building at 700 university avenue

Poll was just because I was interested how many people had thought move was success or not

OK - noted - but you might not get the answers to your Toronto questions, or vice versa - as it's two quite separate questions/audiences. Hey ho.

Hi Nibbles,
I can't help with all of your questions but I'll try...We came to Toronto in August '08 and live near Bathurst/Lawrence.

1. From what I recall there have been posts on here saying it is difficult to find a rental that allows pets. Our cats were not the youngest anymore and we decided to not take them to Canada with us. They now live with my parents and are spoiled rotten. I have to say, we did what we thought was best for them but of all the things we had to do to move to Canada, giving up our beasties was most difficult. Our landlady does not object to us having cats but she has a problem with dogs because of the possible noise.

2. Most of our money is still in the UK because we don't need it now and the exchange rate is pretty pants. We took some money with us when we came and have since had money transferred by my FIL through Natwest. (we kept our UK accounts which have all the money in them, took our chequebooks with us to Canada and when we were a bit strapped, we sent FIL a cheque in UK stirling, and he transferred the money from his UK account into our Canadian one. He gets favourable rates, so it made sense for us to do that) I think other people have used moneycorps or the XE thing.

3. We struggled a lot with getting a credit card here, despite the fact we had credit reports, bank accounts and, after a while, canadian wage slips. The day after our arrival we opened a bank account with Scotiabank which was not problem at all but they flat-out refused to give us a credit card. We ended up closing our scotiabank account after 3 months or so and moved our banking to TD bank. They are great and offered us an unsecured creditcard with a good limit straight off when we explained the problems we'd been having with Scotiabank (we really had a terrible experience with them and would certainly *not* recommend them!)

4. I think that completely depends on whether the property is vacant or not, whether you have the money for the deopsits, whether your prospective landlord wants to check your references etc. We were very lucky with our realtor (I can give you his details if you want, he was fantastic) who arranged a rental for us so we had a flat to move into the day we arrived. All of this was done via emails whilst we were still in the UK btw.

5. Our stuff took about 8 weeks but that was because it was held up at customs. It was collected in the UK on 7 and 8 July, we moved to toronto on 18 August and we took delivery here on 2 september.

6. well, there's always BE forum I've met some people from here, there's work colleagues, there's meet-up.com and through volunteer work etc. I don't have a job currently and not meeting an awful lot of people but that's ok for now I suppose It doesn't mean I wouldn't like to meet more people though :-)

7. As far as I know, there is no University subway station bhut maybe you mean a subway station close to the university? We currently rent a place about 10 mins walk from Glencairn subway station. from there, it takes Mr B about 20/25 mins to get to King station, which is where is office is. I think the big question is; what do you consider reasonable rent and space? We're renting a 1200sq ft, 3 bed, 2 bath apartment in an older building for about $1500 a month. We have supermarkets and subways station at roughly 10 mins walking distance and downtown is not far by subway so we feel quite happy :-)

8. As far as tips on the move....try and not get too stressed (I know, easier said than done!) :-) When our move came close, I almost developed cold feet, which I have now learned is quite common apparently :-) Just enjoy the adventure :-)


hope this helps a little...feel free to pm me if you need more info :-) oh and a (premature) welcome to canada from us!


Mrs B

Absolutely could not come to canada without my dogs as they are the loves of our lives. Is it impossible to rent with them?

I might have some advice, but without knowing how much you want to / are prepared to/ spend on rent, whether you are alone except for the dogs (oh, how many, what breed?) etc., etc. it'd be likely useless.

Ah, I've worked there on and off for twenty years or so. I suggest that, if you don't have it now, you work quickly on basic Cantonese.

10/10 for spelling!

Try this website:=

http://www.apartmentcorner.com/Searc...apartments.asp

You should also Google 'Rent with pets in Toronto' for other sites.

0/10 for charisma, muppet.

haha

As for rental a house with pets, no problem. A no pets clause is actually illegal in Ontario and not legally enforceable. You only have to get rid of pets if they are dangerous or causing a problem for other tenants.