As you can imagine, I receive a lot of emails from the blog readers.

I’m not complaining, of course.  Quite the opposite as I absolutely love hearing from the readers!

Even though it’s completely anonymous (so long as you can think up a clever moniker), not every reader wants to share his or her story in the comments section on TRB.

Consider the blog post from last month: “Should You Hire Your Cousin Vinny To Sell Your Condo?”

While the readers were happy to share their experiences (a dozen or-so comments posted, and my favourite was from “Different David” who mentioned his first kiss was at the Hyland cinema during “Hook”), I also received six emails from readers directly.

I swear, I could have printed these emails off and read them with glee while warming my feet by the fire and drinking scotch.  These emails were epic!

All the reader/emailers shared awful experiences, but most of them, after reading “My Cousin Vinny” were able to laugh it off.  Four of the six were from people who didn’t use their “Cousin Vinny” to sell their house or condo, but who endured family squabbles because of it, while two emails were from people who, unfortunately, had to work with an inept family member…

A few months ago, I wrote a blog post called, “Are We In A Rental Housing Crisis?”

A short time later, I received an email from a TRB reader who we’ll call “Karrie.”

Karrie had read the blog post and the subsequent comments, notably a very long and informative comment from our very own Ace Goodheart.

“David, I think I have a crazy story for your blog,” she said in the email.  “Let me know if you want to chat.”

How could I possibly say no to that offer?  I’m always on the lookout for blog fodder, and this is exactly how I get it…

I called Karrie the next day from the car and she said that after reading Ace‘s comment, she just had to get in touch with me.

During his lengthy comment, Ace noted:

Another story comes to mind. Two tenants having a war with each other. Things got nasty. Who was to blame? Well, if you said the landlord, congratulations, you win a prize. The landlord was found to be fully to blame, by the human rights tribunal, for not having some sort of policy to deal with tenants who hate each other. They had to pay out damages.

Interestingly enough, the landlord in this case had tried and tried and tried to evict the problem tenants. Tribunal would not let them. And the tenant war continued. Maybe they were supposed to hire an onsite counsellor, for people to talk to if they felt like fighting with other tenants?

“My problem wasn’t so much that the two tenants I had were fighting with each other,” Karrie explained to me, “But rather they ceased to live together at all.”

Here’s Karrie’s story…

Karrie explained that she was a first-time landlord and that she had an awful experience buying the condo but she felt obligated to use the agent who sold her the condo to lease it out for her as well.

The condo was a 720 square foot, 2-bed, 2-bath unit in a pretty popular neighbourhood in the downtown core.

She listed it for $3,199/month and had some scattered showings but no offers after ten days.

A short while later, she received an offer from two young men in their mid-20’s, both gainfully employed and both with decent credit.

“I know this sounds awful,” Karrie told me over the phone, “But doesn’t every landlord dream about finding a mature couple with a cat, who both work 80-hours per week and are never home in the unit?” she said with a laugh.

She told me, “My agent said that we didn’t have any other leads and he told me we needed to take this offer.”

The two young men were gainfully employed.  One worked for an HVAC company making $59,000 per year and the other worked in graphic design making $65,000 per year.

“My agent said that their combined income was more than enough.  He said their whatever-ratio was 31% and that was well below the trouble zone.”

She was right in that regard.  A combined income of $124,000 was more than sufficient, on a GDS or TDS basis, to carry a $3,200/month condo.

“They both had decent credit scores; like something in the 700’s, which wasn’t the best but certainly wasn’t awful.”

Karrie said that she felt she had no other options and, given they were mid-month and these guys were looking to occupy the unit in two weeks, she worried that if she waited another two weeks, the next offer would be for the month after and she would lose another month’s rent.

She signed the Offer To Lease and she had some tenants!

Her very first tenants, as a first-time landlord, in her very first investment property.

Karrie said that everything went well for the first three months.  She never heard from the tenants.  Not once.

That’s every landlord’s dream.  They all fear the phone call from property management saying that the tenants are throwing beer bottles off the balcony (or a chair onto the Gardiner…), or that they’ve AirBnB’d the unit to strangers who are trashing the place.

But that phone call never came.

Four months into the lease, however, Karrie received an e-transfer for $1,600 from one tenant, who we’ll call Dan.

Karrie thought that was odd, as she typically received the whole $3,200 each month from Dan, as he had tasked himself with collecting the other $1,600 from his roommate, who we’ll call Evan.

This is how things get messy, and many landlords can attest to this.

Most banks have limits on e-transfers of $3,000.

So every month, Dan sent Karrie $3,000 and then $200 the next day.  It was super annoying, but it was always completed on time.

Why Dan didn’t transfer $1,600 and Evan didn’t transfer $1,600, Karrie didn’t know.  But from the beginning of the lease, Dan told Karrie, “I’ll get the money from Evan every month and you’ll get the full payment from me,” so Karrie didn’t mind.

Now, Karrie had only received half of the rent.  She didn’t panic at first, as she was used to getting $3,000 followed by $200, and figured maybe it was a mix-up.

After five days, Karrie emailed Dan to say, “I have only received $1,600 this month, when can I expect the other $1,600?”

“I didn’t expect to hear from him,” Karrie told me.  “Something felt off and I just had a bad feeling.”

To Karrie’s surprise, Dan emailed back within ten minutes with a very simple response:

“Evan has moved out.”

That was it.

Four words.

Karrie called Dan but he didn’t answer.

So she emailed him back and said, “What do you mean he moved out?  What’s happening with the rent?”

Dan wrote back and said:

“Evan moved out.  He’s responsible for the other half of the rent.  If he’s moved out, I guess he’s not going to pay.  He didn’t send it to me.”

Karrie was in a panic.

“I was a first-time landlord,” Karrie said.  “I called my agent and he was zero help.  He told me to go over there and knock on the door and demand my rent, but I wasn’t going to do that.  I asked him to call the tenant’s agent and he sighed and said it wouldn’t help but then he agreed.  Except I never heard back from him.”

Karrie called Evan but Evan didn’t answer.

“I tried him every day, twice a day, left messages, and then emailed and texted him, but no response.”

After two weeks, Karrie started to realize that Evan wasn’t going to pay his half of the rent and that Dan sure wasn’t going to pay for Evan, so she asked a friend what to do.

“My friend told me there’s no such thing as ‘half’ of the rent.  Two people were on title on the lease and they were both liable.”

Karrie was right, but many of you already know how this story is going to end.

When two people are on a lease agreement, they are both liable for the full amount.  Together, they can determine “who owes what,” so long as the full amount is paid every month.

Years ago, back when it was okay for three young men to rent a condo together, I had these kids out of the University of Western who leased a 2-bed, 2-bath condo in CityPlace for $2,300/month.  One guy took the master bedroom, which had an ensuite bathroom, as well as the parking space, and he paid $1,200.  Another guy took the second bedroom and shared the second bathroom, and he paid $700.  Then the third guy put a mattress in the massive hall closet making that his room, and he paid $400.

How tenants divvy up their rent is up to them.

But every month, the rent must be paid in full.

Karrie’s tenants seemed to think that they were “separate” tenants, with “separate” rents, which they were not.

So Karrie’s friend helped her draft an email to Dan as follows:

Hello Dan:

Please find attached a copy of your lease agreement.

The second line shows “TENANT” and there are two names there, both yours and Evan’s.

Section 3 of the lease specifies under “RENT” that “The tenants will pay to the said Landlord monthly and every month during the said term of the lease the sum of $3,199.”

Nowhere in this Agreement to Lease does it note that each tenant is responsible for half of the $3,199 per month.

You and Evan came into this lease agreement together and you are therefore still bound by the terms and conditions together.

If Evan is not paying his half of the rent and you want to remain in the condo then you are to expected to pay the other “half” of the rent as you describe it.

I expect that $1,600 will be e-transferred to me within three business days and that $3,199 will be e-transferred on the first of next month.

Thank You.

Karrie.

“I didn’t know what to expect,” Karrie told me.  “I’m not a pessimist but I honestly didn’t expect Dan to start paying his buddy’s rent.  Oops.  I mean, it’s not his buddy’s rent, right?  There are no ‘halves’ here.  There’s not supposed to be.  I just didn’t expect a happy ending here.”

Karrie said that Dan didn’t respond.

A week went by and there was no response so Karrie forwarded the email to Dan and said, “FYI, see below.”

Another week went by, and on the first of the following month, Karrie received an e-transfer from Dan for $1,600.

“That was his ‘half’ of the rent,” Karrie said.  “I had tried contacting Evan about fifty times by now but I accepted that he was out of the picture.  So now Dan was basically telling me he was going to stay there and pay half the rent.”

Karrie decided to go on the offensive.

“I put up an ad on Kijiji.  I know, I know what you’re going to say.  But I wasn’t going to talk to my agent about this and I just wanted to know if I had options for a ‘room rental’ so I wanted to see the interest level,” Karrie told me.

She said she had multiple inquiries within a day and that it was pretty obvious that she could find somebody to rent the other “half” of the condo for $1,600 per month.

“So I emailed Dan,” she told me.  And this is what she sent:

Hello Dan:

I have not received a response to my email sent to you last month.

If you are unwilling to honour the terms of our agreement to lease then I am going to fill the other bedroom with another tenant.

I will need access to show the property on Saturday afternoon at 1:00pm.

Thank You.

Karrie.

“The amazing thing is: after not responding to my last email for three weeks, he wrote back instantaneously!”

What did Dan write back, you ask?

Was he going to accommodate Karrie and allow her to show the condo?

Nope.

He simply said:

“Karrie – Evan and I are on title as you mentioned in your last email.  You can’t fill the other half of the condo when Evan is legally entitled to it.”

Oh, the balls on this guy!

He wanted to have his cake, and eat it too.

Is that the right expression or colloquialism?

Was he talking out of both sides of his mouth?

Was he playing both sides?

He refused to pay the full month’s rent even though he was contractually obligated to, as he argued that his previous roommate was responsible for his “half,” but when Karrie suggested that she find him a new roommate, he argued that his previous roommate was still legally tied to the property and that Karrie couldn’t place a new tenant inside.

His position was unfair.

But was it legal?

Yes.  It actually was.

He has a legal right to remain in the premises, paying whatever rent he wants – even zero, until the Landlord & Tenant Board issues a notice of eviction.

There’s the rub.

And Karrie eventually began to learn this as she spoke to a paralegal about her options.

“They advised me that I could send him a notice of eviction for non-payment of rent, er, I mean, I could send both Dan and Evan the notice, since it was a joint responsibility, and it didn’t matter that Evan had moved out and Dan was still living there,” Karrie told me.

Karrie was told that she could not commence legal action against just Evan, since it was Dan and Evan, together, that were responsible for the rent.

What a gong-show.

Karrie sent Dan and Evan the requisite Form N4: Notice to End Your Tenancy For Non-Payment Of Rent.

Neither Dan nor Evan responded.

A short while later, she forwarded the email to the two of them again with an “FYI,” much like she tried with an email weeks earlier, but there was still no response.

On the first of the next month, Dan sent Karrie $1,600 once again.

Karrie hired the paralegal and they applied to the Landlord & Tenant Board for a hearing, but Karrie was told, “This could take six months or more.”

“I was losing $1,600 per month and I was bleeding cash,” she said.  “I was desperate so I sent Dan a text message asking if we could please speak.”

This time, he answered.

“He simply texted back and said ‘OK’ and that was it.  My heart was in my throat, I swear.  I didn’t know what the heck to do but instinctually, I just dialed.”

Karrie said the conversation was actually amicable.

“He was calm and friendly, I was shocked,” she said.  “He just said, kinda like, ‘Look, I don’t have $3,200 per month but I think I’ve been a good tenant sending you my $1,600 every month, and that has to count for something.'”

“But then he told me he didn’t want to be evicted,” she said.  “He suggested we find a ‘happy medium’ as he put it.”

Dan suggested to Karrie that, instead of spending a year trying to evict him, he would offer to “top up” the rent.

“Two thousand dollars is what he offered me,” she said.  “It was extortion.”

This is a massive legal grey area, of course, but most of you know that this really would take a year to get to the LTB and even then, there’s no guarantee of an eviction.

Karrie explained, “At this point, anything more than $1,600 per month was probably found money, since it was clear he wouldn’t allow me to place a roommate in there, Evan was long gone and wasn’t going to pay, and Dan wasn’t going to pay Evan’s half.  I had no choice.”

Karrie offered Dan the unit for $2,200 per month and Dan accepted.

“So now I’m basically out $1,000 per month for as long as Dan chooses to live there, and I can never get him out unless I’m moving into the unit myself, or if I sell and a buyer moves in.”

She’s right about that.

But the worst is yet to come.

“Property management contacted me about booking the moving elevator,” Karrie said.  “So naturally, I freaked out and thought maybe Dan was moving out or something, even though that would have been the best-case scenario!  I didn’t know what was going on so I asked them and they said somebody was moving in.”

Yup.

Dan was an enterprising young fellow.

He found a roommate.  And Karrie’s friend found his ad on Padmapper.

Dan was renting out the other half of the condo for $1,400 per month, meaning that, after he paid Karrie the agreed-upon $2,200 per month, he was living the lavish life for only $800.

“I felt so stupid,” Karrie told me.  “But then I felt betrayed.  I felt used and taken advantage of.”

The conversation left me feeling rather odd.

Karrie was a complete stranger and yet I felt for her so much that the pit of my stomach felt tight for the rest of that drive, and I had anxiety for the rest of the day.  I was actually quite angry and I found myself laying in bed that night having an imaginary conversation with Karrie’s tenant.

Essentially, Karrie was scammed.  She was bullied.  She was forced to make an awful decision because of the power that her tenant held.

“Dan” could have simply stopped paying his $1,600 per month and it would have taken Karrie a year to get him out of there.

In fact, any tenant in Ontario can stop paying their rent tomorrow and it could take a landlord a year to get them out of there.

A tenant is afforded the right to bankrupt a landlord, at any time, for no good reason.

I recognize how many miserable landlords are out there, but in efforts to protect tenants, it allows the tenants carte blanche to do whatever they please.

A reader suggested in Wednesday’s blog that the real problem is a lack of funding at the LTB.  That’s part of the problem, but the existing legislation is part as well.

And the other part?

People.

It’s amazing to see what people will do to each other, if given the chance.

I won’t get too existential on a Friday, but one could argue that before the problem with the Landlord & Tenant Act, and before the problem of a lack of funding at the Landlord & Tenant Board, maybe the real problem is simply people themselves?

Chew on that for the rest of the day…