All Forum Posts by: Gagan P.

Assuming this is residential so:

1) Landlord, almost always

2) Landlord. Tenant can get a tenant insurance policy

3) I believe landlord.

4) This varies area to area but mostly landlord

5) Major stuff landlord. Minor stuff tenants, depending on area

6) Usually tenant.

I believe you could and would do it the same way as in the US and other places. Purchase/register the property, pay the stamp duty, and at the same time register a loan on the property in the amount of the purchase (or however much he is financing).

When it is paid off, documentation is signed/registrar is informed (I would guess by a lawyer) and the loan is removed from the registrar's documents. If he passes away in the meantime, then you'd still have your documentation on the amounts you paid, and would pay the estate the balance and do it the same way as if he'd been around still.

The boilers. Replace with high efficiency units rather than the 60-70% efficient ones that are likely currently in place. That's the biggest one I can think of. As well as HRV, heat recovery systems to pull heat off the drains and pre-heat the liquid.

@Roy N This makes sense. As far as SIN, finding a report easier is one reason, another can be that as you have to (at least in Ontario) pay the tenants interest on the rent deposit, you require it to report the interest to the CRA. Most don't have an issue, or at least giving it prior to occupancy if they don't want to provide it when they apply.

Sorry I'm having issues tagging for some reason.

I typically use RentCheck.com for Canadian applications, as you're usually able to pull both reports. It's not as cheap as having them pull a CreditKarma report, but some tenants have to be taught how to exactly pull the report.

I believe if you contact Equifax (or whoever you pull through in Houston) they may be able to pull a Canadian report as well. Canadian criminal and eviction records are not searchable unfortunately.

 Chicago there have been posts here about deposit rules, including penalties (plus legal costs) against landlords for not using them to the letter. There was a post a few months ago (I think on this forum) about a lawyer who represented a landlord that bought a property, and the $1,000-2,000 deposit wasn't applied properly. Tenant took landlord to court, won, and landlord had to pay $15k in legal costs (of course lawyers love it), plus the deposit. That's why most landlords in Chicago prefer just not taking a deposit.

SF has extreme rent controls regarding evictions and increases, again the specifics I'm not 100% on, but on most older places (and I think newer) essentially once a tenant is in it's hard to get them out (and also to increase rent).

NY, same issue, that's why there's million dollar properties that you can barely increase the rent, as well as tenants not moving in years. I've seen a few million dollar properties with tenants paying a few hundred in rent.

Ontario, the rules depend on which political party is in power. It use to be that units built after 1991 were exempt from rent control rules in terms of amount, with guideline being "the lower of 2.5% or CPI increase". The previous government, just before the election, changed that to eliminate exempt units, putting everything under rent control. New government comes in, changes it again and now everything built after November of 2018 is exempt from increase amounts. The current rent increase guideline, as an example, is 1.8%.  San Francisco's rent control rules, for example, from March 1 2018 to Feb 28 2019 allow a landlord to increase the rent on controlled units by 2.6%. 

Oh and as I said, anything a tenant says for the most part is taken at face value. In Ontario if a tenant files a form and there's an error, the tenant is allowed to amend it at hearing. Landlord files form and there's even a slight error, landlord has to re-file and hearing dismissed. I read a case where the landlord made an error on a notice by rounding 2 cents, application denied.

Tax rules are a different issue. You can be primarily involved in managing your rentals in the US and the IRS will consider it active income. In Canada, you can have a 100 unit building, and that can be your main source of revenue and main thing you spend your time on, but if you don't have "more than 5" (at least 6) full time employees, then it's considered passive income.

 This is true, even more so with commercial properties in India. However, most of the rent rules there nowadays are more equally written in that they do allow evictions and orders sooner. Problem is every person who gets a court order against them appeals to the state high court either way. 

Canada is just as bad, Tenant is taken at their word, whereas Landlord is usually not believed unless there's a stack of documents proving their case. 

My ranking of top 4 jurisdictions that are bad for landlords in the US and Canada are NYC, San Francisco, Chicago (their deposit rules), and Ontario (evictions take 3-4 months on average if not longer, and usually 2 months just to get a hearing). Yes, that's three cities and one entire province.

Almost sounds like the "tenant" is a troll.

34k over 14 years means 202 Euros per month. I'm not sure on the exact rent amounts in Italy, but I'm sure it's more than that. 

To get disability in Italy, apparently you must have been working and made 5 years of contributions prior to filing, making it 19 years they would have to have lived there (assuming the "on disability" meant for 14 years as well).

Either way, ridiculous. I hope San Francisco authorities and the province of Ontario don't find out about the eviction procedures that Italy has.

 This.

A "bad contractor database" is something that's needed, along with a "bad tenant database", because there's many things that don't show up on public records, but if investors can look up and contribute to a database, essentially like a credit bureau but 'members only', it may save many people money and aggravation.

Police won't touch it unless he gives you a bad check (and even that depends on where you are).

A few things I can think of. One, if he claims he bought material, tell him to bring it.

Second, you mentioned he needed to renew his license. He may also have a bond on file, or insurance, that you can go after.

Lastly, small claims court. Assuming you got something in writing? If not, and you have witnesses, that's fine too. A trick with that is (again depending on state law) record a conversation or have someone in the room and phone on speaker with him promising a date to return your deposit due to him not starting on time. Just make sure you have single party consent laws.