Rents have shot up here in Montreal, a city once considered ridiculously affordable.
One reason rents have risen is the massive financial damage caused when a tenant fails to pay his rent.
Under provincial law, a non-paying tenant can get three months for free, simply by not paying his rent. He often can get even more time depending on how long his landlord put up with his failure to pay. The financial loss caused to a landlord by non a paying tenant is relatively massive and potentially crippling.
The landlord inevitably has to increase his revenue and looks to good tenants to compensate his losses.
Thus the law that prevents a landlord from deadling swiftly with non-payers hurts paying tenants because good tenants ultimately subsidize bad tenants.
So why does a deadbeat tenant not pay his rent? There are many reasons but a significant portion of non-payers are people with drug addiction issues. I'd peg drug abuse as the problem in about 30 to 40 percent of cases.
So, yes, you are probably paying too much in rent. It's not exclusively due to the low vacancy rate or greed.
Come on...don't be a big bad landlord...
ReplyDeleteI'm not. It's just to display that the natural adversary of the tenant isn't the landlord, it's the bad tenant.
ReplyDeletei'm inclined to agree...i've had far more bad neigbhor (tenants) than really bad landlords.
ReplyDeleteI wholeheartedly agree. People tend to think that the landlord is the evildoer in most landlord / tenant disputes.
ReplyDeleteI have met far more bad tenants in my life than bad landlords. I also know at least two people who have lost propertys to foreclosure because of bad tenants.
FYI - I am a renter myself.
"I'd peg drug abuse as the problem in about 30 to 40 percent of cases."
ReplyDeleteUm..... should this be filed under "Did you know that 35% of all statistics are totally made up?"