Small ownership landlords in Ontario call for rental housing market reform

A group of housing providers in the province are calling out the Ford government, saying reform is needed to help small-ownership landlords and good tenants.

Small Ownership Landlords of Ontario (SOLO) held a rally outside Queen’s Park on Saturday, calling on the province to provide better ways to protect small ownership landlords from tenants who refuse to pay.

“My tenant stopped paying rent to the tune of $26,000, and then he eventually burned my house down,” said Kevin Costain, SOLO board member.

“What we call professional tenants, those folks really exploit the system, and they can really do it well.”

The group said the current situation with so-called bad tenants is dire, with owners seeing theft, extortion, violence, and property damage. The non-profit group adds that ongoing delays at the Landlord Tenant Board – which resolves disputes between residential landlords and tenants – should not serve as an excuse when dealing with these types of renters.

“The LTB takes quite a long time, sometimes 8-12 months, and all corners of the system don’t provide justice for the small landlord,” said Costain.

The group is calling for a more firm, faster resolution with the Landlord Tenant Board, saying uncontested, non-payment of rent should not have a hearing, clearing the way for repeat rent withholders to be evicted.

“If you have a tenant that is established that they haven’t paid rent, the landlord has applied for eviction, if the tenant doesn’t produce proof that they are paying rent within two months, have an eviction happen, it’s merely a paperwork process at that point,” said Costain.

The Landlord Tenant Board reported it received over 73,000 applications in 2022-2023. At the end of that fiscal year, there were more than 53,000 unresolved cases. The group SOLO believes most of these cases are for rent disputes, and adding to the process could take upwards of two years before a hearing happens.

“That’s somewhere of up around 71 per cent of cases at the LTB are literally from non-payment of rent and it could just be that simple, you start reducing the backlog at the LTB,” said Costain.

Small landlords, who typically own one to two properties say they lack the resources to make up for lost funds. Some owners have said they have had no other option than to sell their properties. The non-profit group stresses that this ultimately means less supply in an already high demand market, and are calling for urgent intervention.

“Our fight is across the board, when there is injustice this has to change,” said Costain.