Quote:
Originally Posted by 6793026
sorry.. something is not clear.
if the owner wants to sell the house, he has to give you NOTICE to leave. he can give it 6 months ahead of time or whichever province you are in, he has to give you notice.
if someone failed to pay rent, you do not get KICKED out. you get served a NOTICE stating you have FAILED to paid rent or utilities. You then have 10 days to resolve. THEN the landlord will take you to court and get a court date BEFORE a decision is made.
You don't get just kicked out after 2 weeks. There's a law protecting tenants to prevent people being kicked out on the street in -40 weather just cause you were late in rent.
don't trust anything until you have htings on paper.
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Here's the whole rent thing in a nutshell.
Ok. You are late with rent. First time, never been late before. Normally, a landlord will call you, or put a warning letter under your door as a "reminder". Please note, rent is due on the first of EVERY month. Holidays, sundays, all of them. Midnight on the first.
If you do pay rent: everyone stays happy. This counts as a late payment of rent, even if I didn't make a big deal of it.
If you don't pay rent: the landlord could, and should serve you with a RTA-10, what we call the "10 day pay-to-stay" order. This gives you 5 days to pay rent, or 10 days to move out. If the tenant is not home to receive that order(which they, surprise! never are) and you leave it on the door, they effectively get 3 days to receive that notice. All of this is described on the form.
Please note, both of these options count as a late payment of rent.
So, execution of the 10 day notice:
You didn't pay. Eight days went by as you 'weren't home' and they taped it to your door. Now, you have to move.
You can: move.
Everyone stays a bit happy. YOU STILL OWE RENT! Landlord's far and wide do not seem to understand this. Tenant's especially do not understand this. It's not like declaring bankruptcy. You don't wipe the slate by moving. As a landlord in BC, On a year's lease, I am entitled to one year's worth of rent. I can get it from you, I can get it from a variety of 'yous', but by signing that lease with you, I am saying, you are entitled to this place for a year, and I am entitled to rent for the year. I don't, and should not, bend over and take it. Ultimately, this ends up in arbitration, which is beyond the scope here.
You can: not move.
We aren't happy now. Now I have a squatter. This gets way more complicated, and a little out of scope, but now we need to involve the branch, get orders of possession, and if they still don't move, ultimately spend a lot of money on bailiffs and force you out. I've never had it go this far, and hope to never be there. Suffice it to say, the landlord is out a lot of money, its aggravating and there is nothing at that point you can do to re-coup.
Repeated Late Payments:
Here's where things get interesting. Let's say you are occasionally late, but pay multiple times.
Kind of the standard is 3 times in a calendar year. After we've established a trend, we can issue you a 30 day notice to move for repeated late payments. AND THERE IS NOTHING YOU CAN DO. If you can't prove that rent WAS paid on time, or the landlord doesn't have it documented, then you are out(cold weather be damned)
Here's the unwritten rule:
There are varying degrees to how people are treated in these situations, at least, in my world.
If you are a longer term tenant, and your rent is below market standard, you get treated to within the letter of the law. This isn't a matter of 'liking' you or not, its business. If a tenant is below market rent, but keeps to themselves and is nice and friendly, and keeps their apartment nice, you are way less likely to get these notices-I have nothing to get you on. You win. Even if you are occasionally late, I may let it slide just because you win on the other fronts.
BUT
If you are below market in rent, you aren't particularly nice to deal with and your apartment is a disaster, why wouldn't I try to use your own failings(ie rent payment) to rectify the whole situation?
And these are the people that scream bloody murder when they get these notices. I have a memory. From day one, we're keeping score. Suddenly, you're in shit, and now we're all buddy buddy? No, it starts when something has gone wrong, and you aren't the person that's in my face because I failed to provide something for you(occasionally water tanks break, furnaces break...shit happens).
My main point is, we don't ALWAYS want you to move just because of late payment. Most times, there is something more to it.
In the grand scheme, if, in what dino and I share with people on RS regarding tenancy, IF I can get basement suite landlords to think a bit more like a business, and less like "some dude in my basement", I'll be happy.