Beware the Wrong Tenants

I can’t overemphasize what Ozzie Jurock has said in his manual about ensuring that you get the right tenant. It is far better to leave a suite vacant for a few more weeks than have a nightmare that the law protects and you can’t get rid of.
At Downtown Suites, we look after much of this for you, but if you are a landlord, here is some of our advice.

Always take a detailed application form. If you don’t have one, create one. It is essential.
Always check references, employment and past landlords. Don’t skip this vital step. We always verify income and have a credit check through a credit reporting service like Tenant Verification. We won’t accept anyone in the suites we manage with a score under 600.

And ensure that you always use the correct form. You may think these things don’t matter, but they can create problems for you if ignored.

We recently inherited a suite with a bad tenant in it. The suite was owned by a strata corp and their management had approved him even though he had a string of R9’s.

They realized he was involved with drugs, and served notice. However, they served notice with the wrong form. Even our eviction guy couldn’t get him out immediately. This kind of person always knows the law better than you do and their intent is to stay as long as possible for free. The cheque is always in the mail. Result: he got another free month until he had freeloaded for 2-½ months  in total! The suite was a mess, and he left behind his belongings and 2 cats which we had to place in foster care. (SPCA wouldn’t help.)

In another recent incident,  a grow op was discovered in a strata building, not managed by us but here in Vancouver. These tenants had used 2 enormous zipped plastic bags to create large rooms within rooms. Here they housed their grow op and the plastic helped conceal the smell and moisture.

My advice: follow the methods we use at Downtown Suites, and do all your due diligence before the tenant moves in. This will save you more than 75% of your headaches.