Average wait for a Landlord and Tenant Board hearing on disputes grows to 8 months.

landlord and tenants board long wait times

The CBC article in the link below is an important and common lesson you should discuss with investor wannabes. Also extrapolate beyond the article, what are you thinking when you read this?

Are you just reading that the LTB is taking eight months to resolve disputes?

Are you just thinking "poor landlord, the system is unfair and broken"? Really, stop. Read the article, then come back to this message to finish reading it. What are you thinking as you finish the article?

Landlord and Tenant Board has Collapsed, Article

I had multiple thoughts as I read through this.

1. What role did their Realtor play? Did they advise the client prior to purchasing the property? What did they advise them? What would you have advised?

2. Did the landlord "cheap out" and not order a credit check on the potential tenants? (landlords can join organizations to get credit checks done very inexpensively)

3. Did the landlord get a history of the tenants past two landlords and give them a call? If they did, did they call just the most recent landlord, the odds are good that that landlord could have lied and said his tenants were great, because he/she wants to get rid of the non paying, delinquent bar stewards.

4. Did the landlord's Realtor recommend buying a multi unit property instead of a single? Why? Well, for two reasons.

A) economy of scale and

B) if a tenant does not pay rent in a single family, for one month, that is an 8% loss of the annual revenue. (1 divided by 12 = 8.3%) If one tenant does not pay rent for one month in a duplex, that represents just 4% loss of annual revenue.

5. There are other considerations but I won't bore you.

If you are playing in the investment game, you need to have these discussions.

What the buyer / investor chooses to do with this advice is up to them. Be a trusted advisor, not some twit who gets hot and bothered at the prospect of a commission cheque. A trusted advisor makes a client for life.