A Democratic Surprise!

As you know the Liberals won a surprise majority on May 14th.  We expect Premier Clark to announce her Cabinet by the middle of June.  

Rich Coleman, Deputy Premier before the election, has been responsible for residential tenancy legislation since 2001 and we expect him to continue with this portfolio, along with another major Cabinet post.  As always in politics, there are no guarantees!

-Al Kemp

What Have My Tenants Got Me Into Now?

Q: My tenants just sent me an e-mail that they intend to vacate at the end of October. I knew that the only way i could claim lost rent for November is if I tried to re-rent the suite right away, so I placed an ad immediately after I received the message. Now I have chosen tenant for November 1st and signed a tenancy agreement, but my current tenants have changed their mind. Isn't it right that I have to give consent for them to withdraw their notice?

A: If the tenant had given you valid notice, then yes; you would need to give your notice. there are two reasons for this - the first being that all necessary information would not be included. Notices to end tenancy must include both the tenant's and the landlord's names, the address of the rental unit and the date notice was served, the date the notice is effective and the signature of the person giving the notice. Of course a signature cannot be contained in an e-mail. Secondly , e-mail is not a valid means of service. Proper service (for most documents) can be personal on the tenant, person on an adult occupant, affixed to the door or other conspicuous place, left in a mailbox, sent via fax to a number provided by the tenant or in the mail. In this case, your present tenancy is still intact and you will need to either negotiate with your current tenants to move out or your new tenants not to move in! Either way it's likely to cost you some money.

_

 Al Kemp

Spring Hope Food Drive

Landlords already offer a very important service to over one third of British Columbians by providing accommodations for those who choose to - or have no choice but to - rent their homes. ROMS BC and BCAOMA are proud to provide you and your tenants with an opportunity to facilitate giving to those who need our assistance in this fragile time of year. 

Many of our members have signed up their buildings for this inspiring event and food will be collected on March 21st. If you not registered for the Spring Hope food Drive and reside in Victoria, there is a bin for non-perishable food at the ROMS BC Office. For more details call us at 250. 382.6324 or toll free at 1.888.330.6707.

Bed Bugs - Heat Treatment vs. Pesticide Treatment

We are often asked about the difference between heat treatment and pesticide treatment. Here is a side by side comparison of a heat treatment, and a typical pesticide treatment for bed bugs:

Pesticide Treatment	Heat Treatment
30 Minute-2 hour process	6-8 hour process
Minuimum 2 services; potential 3 or more!	One Service
Bed Bug eggs not killed	100% eliminated
Bed Bugs in walls not killed	100% eliminated
Bed bugs in furniture not killed	100% eliminated
Bed Bugs in clutter not killed	100% eliminated
Intense preparation required by tenants	Minimal preparation required by tenants
Residual pesticides left in affected areas	No toxic chemicals used

 (Thank you to our friends at Assured Thermal Solutions of Vancouver for the statistics contained in this chart.)

 

Provincial Rental Housing Conference - Photos

ROMS BC hosted the first ever Provincial Rental Housing Conference on November 22nd and 23rd, and it was a great success. Over two days, delegates participated in workshops geared to the rental housing industry, attended an industry exhibition and ROMS BC 42^nd AGM all at the beautiful Westin Bear Mountain Golf Resort and Spa. 

 

Lisa Pynn from BC Assesment conducting her workshop: Your Rental Property Assesment - Digging Deeper.

Daryn Martiniuk from the Residential Tenancy Branch giving a presentation: What's New at the RTB.

 Mike Bush feeding a live colony of bedbugs provided by Victoria Pest Control after their workshop: Bedbugs - Stigma, Anatomy and Control.

 Carly Ludwar-Jellis - Member Service Manager at ROMS BC addressing the delegates at ROMS BC's 42nd AGM.

Scott Souder from the conference's platinum sponsor, RONA, speaking at the ROMS BC's 42nd AGM.

Are You a Rental Housing Professional?

ROMS BC is very excited to announce the long- awaited arrival of an accreditation program for landlords in BC. Members currently have access to workshops on more than 25 topics ranging from tenant selection to enforcing orders, but until now there was nothing physical to show for the time you spent improving your knowledge. You will now be able to show that you are more than just an average landlord; you are a Rental Housing Professional. Many members take as many workshops as they can, and accreditation will be a wonderful way to recognize this dedication to landlords improving their professional and managerial skills.

The ROMS BC Rental Housing Professional accreditation program is open to all members and members’ staff, including but not limited to office staff, on-site managers and caretakers. Participation is as easy as attending workshops and collecting credits. Five credits are required for accreditation, which lasts three years and can be extended. Workshops of four hours or less are worth one credit, while workshops over four hours are worth two credits. And as a bonus; once you acquire four credits, your fifth workshop is free (up to a $49 value).

Credits will be offered for any workshop presented by ROMS BC!that has a cost of $29 or more [before any applicable discount]; workshops presented by Associate members are not eligible for credits.

But what about all the workshops members have already taken? ROMS BC is willing to award credits for any workshop attended after January 1st, 2011.

ROMS BC recognizes that many members act as landlords with their spouses or business partners, and that their combined knowledge contributes to their success. Because of this, in addition to individual accreditation, joint accreditation can be achieved. (Joint accreditation is not applicable for property managers or staff.)

--Hunter Boucher

The "H" Word; Is Your Tenant A Hoarder? - A Two Part Blog Series

Part Two

The Issue
In our industry, whether or not someone has this mental illness is not the issue; what landlords need to worry about is the potential for harm when someone accumulates a large amount of clutter in his or her rental unit.

If another tenant or neighbour complains and accuses one of your tenants of being a hoarder, how should you respond?  Your first step is to do a routine inspection of the rental unit. Once inside, answer two questions; a) would emergency responders be able to get into and move around in the rental unit, and/or does the clutter represent a fire hazard, and b) is there the potential for (or are there already) sanitary, hygiene and/or insect or rodent infestation issues?

If the door to the unit won't fully open without the assistance of someone on the other side, or there is no way to move from room to room once inside, then the tenant is jeopardizing his or her own safety and potentially the safety of other occupants of the property. As an example, a 79-year-old woman died in a fire at her Washington row house when her hoarding held back firefighters from reaching her in time.

If the rental unit could not be considered to meet reasonable health, cleanliness and sanitary standards, this is a breach of both a material term of the tenancy agreement and the Residential Tenancy Act by the tenant. A rental unit in this condition could also lead to a pest infestation, putting the interests of other occupants at risk as their units could also become infested - especially if the amount of possessions in the infested rental unit is such that a pest control operator could not successfully apply treatments.

In the end, the issue is not whether or not your tenant is a capital-H hoarder or has or doesn’t have a mental illness; what you need to establish is whether or not there is potential for the quiet enjoyment or safety of the tenant and other residents to be affected.

-- Carly Ludwar

The "H" Word; Is Your Tenant A Hoarder? - A Two Part Blog Series

Part One

The subject of ongoing curiosity, at least two reality TV shows, and the character of Oscar the Grouch, hoarders are again in the spotlight after a recent article in the Globe and Mail about a BC landlord who evicted a hoarding tenant.

Members often call into the office, identifying their tenants as hoarders. But, unless that landlord's day job is to diagnose mental illnesses, how does s/he know that the tenant has this disorder?    The term "hoarder" has become yet another word that is now commonplace in our industry, such as "renoviction" and "slumlord." So how do you assess whether or not your tenant is a real life hoarder, or a simple, every-day collector of stuff?

The Definition

While there is no clear definition of compulsive hoarding in diagnostic criteria, the most suitable description would be "the excessive acquisition of possessions (and failure to use or discard them), even if the items are worthless, hazardous, or unsanitary." There is emerging evidence from mental health professionals that compulsive hoarding is, in fact, a mental illness. Having said that, it would still be difficult to establish whether your tenant could actually have this mental illness, or simply has a large amount of possessions. Dr. Front, a Smith College psychology professor, made a good observation: "When the accumulation of stuff interferes with their ability to live, or causes significant distress; that's the breaking point between hoarding as a [chosen] behavior, and hoarding as a disorder."

Quoted in the above article, Dr. Frost describes several varieties of hoarders: there’s the info junkie who stockpiles documents, the guilt-ridden collector who hates to waste anything, and another who feels an intense, emotional attachment to possessions. Objects are of great value to hoarders - even when they appear to be junk, and they fear losing a part of themselves along with a discarded item.

--Carly Ludwar

Landscaping Smaller Properties Attracts Tenants

Reprinted and adapted with kind permission from LPMAnews, news magazine of the London Property Management Association.

Curb appeal isn’t limited to multi-residential complexes. The same principles can be applied to smaller complexes and houses.
 
Ann Pavlic, who owns three rental houses in Old North London, pays extra attention to her landscaping in spring and fall to ensure her properties are in top shape when students are shopping for accommodations in mid- to late-summer. The grass is kept short and bushes are neatly trimmed. Chipped paint, tired porches and windows are also repaired during the summer.
 
“I do it for the business component and curb appeal, but I also do it for my own sense of pride and satisfaction,” she says. “I live in the neighbourhood and I want my properties to mirror the neighbourhood’s level of living. I’ m conscious that there are residents mingling with the rentals and I want to bring that quality up.”
 
When Pavlic bought her houses 10 years ago, she landscaped in a similar way to other homeowners. She planted ground covers that turn colour from spring to fall, as well as ivies that change from green to burgundy.
 
“It looks wonderful. It frames the house beautifully and it kind of puts it in an Old English kind of setting,” she says.
Pavlic advises small landlords to choose low-maintenance plants that require less care. That practice is particularly important in high-traffic areas, such as along walkways.
 
“Choosing carefully, yet attractively is the key. You want to have enough to be appealing, but not too much to have high maintenance and costs,” she adds.

Fill Your Vacancies

Vacancy rates have gone up in many communities across the province, and landlords have had to deal with this in interesting ways. The easiest way to fill your empty units - with little effort - is to have your existing tenants refer their friends and colleagues. If you have a great building in a fantastic location, your vacancy should rent itself and your tenants should want to refer people they know.

But no matter how amazing your building is, in this market a little incentive can certainly help. Some landlords have incentive referral programs where the person who makes the referral receives something small like a gift card to a nearby coffee shop. Most buildings that have this kind of program have simple rules about what qualifies as a referral; for example, the referred applicant has to actually be accepted and move into the building.

A referral incentive program is not just a great way to fill your vacancies; it is a way to make your apartment building a community that people want to live in and stay in - further reducing your vacancies. Remember to make it fun!

 -- Carly Ludwar and Hunter Boucher

Friday, October 28th

This date needs to be marked in your calendar!

Why? Because it's the date of ROMS BC's Associate Members Trade Show, Annual General Meeting, and [the first ever] Trivia Night! Once again being held at the beautiful Crystal Garden in downtown Victoria, BC.

From 4:00 until 6:00, join us for our formal Associate members trade show. Nearly 30 exhibitors will be excited to tell you about new products and incentives. In addition, there are multiple Associate member product demonstrations and informative workshops. This portion of the event is free to attend for ROMS BC members and their guests.

At 6:30, we will have a gourmet dinner catered by the Fairmont Empress Hotel. This will be followed by our [brief!] Annual General Meeting. The early bird registration cost to attend dinner and the evening that follows is $54.95 per person for ROMS BC members and their guests.

Beginning at 8:00 will be Trivia Night. Replacing the Casino Night of the past three years, Trivia Night gives you the opportunity to reconnect with Associate members - while having a great time! Each booth will have questions from one of seven categories; geography, entertainment, history, arts and literature, science and nature, sports and leisure, or BC's residential rental industry. Each question will be timed, and in order to fill all the pieces of your "cake," you'll need to visit every booth. And if you get the answer correct at any booth, you'll win ROMS BUCKS!

At 9:45, Trivia Night will be over. At this point, all members and their guests will come down to the prize auction, where ROMS BUCKS are used to "purchase" fabulous prizes. And if you don't win any ROMS BUCKS? No worries; there will also be door prize draws.

If this sounds like your kind of evening, watch your mailbox and inbox for more information!

-- AdviserToTheAdvisers