# Rental application - Is it legal to Ask this a Prospective Tenant in Canada?



## flash_os (Jan 20, 2015)

Is it legal to Ask these questions in Rental application to Prospective Tenants in Canada?

Have you..
ever filed bankruptcy?
ever been evicted?
ever been convicted of a felony?


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I believe you can ask nearly anything...they don't need to answer.

I ask for things like sin and drivers license numbers...not everyone answers those, but they make credit checks easier.


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## andrewf (Mar 1, 2010)

You can ask for permission to do a background check. Probably a better bet as someone you feel is untrustworthy in this regard is likely to lie.


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## flash_os (Jan 20, 2015)

I'm simply afraid from to be sued by discrimination.


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## Rusty O'Toole (Feb 1, 2012)

It's not discrimination if you have the same standards and questions for everybody.


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## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

If the prospective tenant should answer 'yes' to any of those questions, they may well lie and say 'no'. I don't think you would not be able to evict them later for lying, only for the usual things like nonpayment of rent.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

You could always add a clause that states lying on the application is grounds for eviction...if they sign the application, the courts look upon it as a contract, so you could evict based on it then.


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## Woz (Sep 5, 2013)

Nothing wrong with asking those questions. You can discriminate based on credit worthiness. You'd be opening yourself up to being sued if you asked things like sexual orientation, religion, political views, etc.



> Rusty O'Toole
> It's not discrimination if you have the same standards and questions for everybody.


Not sure that's the best test for if something's discriminatory. "Judge, I wasn't being discriminatory. I asked all applicant what race they were and applied the same standard of not renting to _[insert race here]_ equally to all applicants."


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## MRT (Apr 8, 2013)

Rusty O'Toole said:


> It's not discrimination if you have the same standards and questions for everybody.


that is incorrect.


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## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

You'd probably end up before a rental housing tribunal, depending on the laws in your province, and they'd look at whether the tenant has or has not met their obligations as tenant - paid their rent, left the other tenants alone, kept the place clean. They won't be interested in something that has no impact on their tenancy. A court may ask what damage has been done to you before being willing to spend the time listening to they case. A court is unlikely to be interested in enforcing a provision of a contract where no damage has been done


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## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

Further to this, you need to find out whether it is lawful to deny tenancy to someone who has been bankrupt/evicted/convicted. I don't know whether it is or isn't, but you would want to check the legislation in your province. If it isn't, and you have denied a prospective tenant the rental (for whatever reason), they may be able to make a complaint under human rights legislation, which would be a pain to deal with.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Sent an email to a guy I know who actually has been asking these, and more questions for years...

He's never had an issue. He also asks if they smoke, have kids, etc.

The thing is, he doesn't descriminate based on the answers, he collects the information as information. If the person answered that they've been evicted before, or had a criminal record, or declared bankruptcy, done drugs, etc. he askes for an explanation to hear their story...there are times when he has rented to people who have answered "yes". 

Of course, when multiple people are applying, it's nearly impossible for people to prove why you didn't rent to them in particular.

One of my biggest screening tools is their income. Many times I see people who make barely more than my rent apply...I usually don't rent unless everyone involved could afford to pay both the rent and others expences on their own if the other people lost their jobs...its happens too often.

Descrimination does not mean you have to accept anyone. The tenant act says you can evict in 24 hours if you, or other people feel threatened by the tenant...so I would say, you don't need to rent to a convicted muderer in the first place, or someone who threatens you, or drug dealers, or people convicted of stealing, etc...as a landlord, it's part of your job, by law, to protect others around your property. They have rights to safety which trump other's rights to live in your place.

This is also why condos can evict your tenants if you don't do it yourself, though it is difficult. I've been on many condo boards where we've done this because of bad landlords.


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## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

Which "tenant act" says this? There are ten provinces and three territories that regulate resuidential tenancies, in Canada. In Ontario, here are the reasons for evicting a tenant -- "feeling threatened" is not one of them:

http://www.ltb.gov.on.ca/en/Key_Information/170036.html

All the more reason for the OP to find out what the law actually says in his or her province/territory, rather than relying on information or misinformation in a web forum.

Lots of people _feel _threatened by members of other races, but you cannot evict someone or refuse to rent to them on that basis. If a tenant actually makes a threat against someone, then you could likely effectively argue that this "substantially interfered with the reasonable enjoyment of the landlord or another tenant", which is grounds for eviction. I doubt that a residential tenancy tribunal would accept that a previous bankrupcy/eviction or even conviction would "substantially interfere". You might be able to make that argument in the case of a convicted child molestor living in a house with children or across the raod from a school. But I'm not a lawyer. 

The issue with asking questions is that it opens the door for them to complain that you refused to rent to them because of their answer, and it is then up to you to prove that you refused to rent to them for someon other reason. It creates a risk for the landlord of getting dragged beofre a human rights tribunal.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

Davis, please read what I post instead of twisting it. I specifically said to be used to deny a murderer or someone who threatened you…not a race thing.

I also siad, that you can ask to collect information, not to deny.

I also said, I asked someone who's been doing this exact thing for years and has never been dragged before a human rights tribunal.

Can you say differently, from experience (ever been before a tribunal or know someone who has for asking such questions on a rental application) or are you just stating an opinion based on your views and not actual experience?


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## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

I did not intend to twist what you said, and I apologize that it came across that way. I was responding to your comment that "The tenant act says you can evict in 24 hours if you, or other people feel threatened by the tenant..." I don't see "feeling threatened" as being grounds for eviction n the Ontario law, but maybe it exists in other provinces. 

I am raising the point that if you ask for the information, and then deny for another reason, the refused tenant could claim that he/she was denied for an invalid reason. The landlord would then have to prove that the person was declined for a valid reason. I have been a landlord, and a property manager (for one apartment). As a landlord, I went to the residential tenancy tribunal to evict a tenant (settled with a mediator), and as a property manager, I was called to testify for the landlord at small claims court. In each case, I had to take a day off work and incur travel and other expenses. So I have experience in landlord tenant matters, and urge the OP to get his/her own legal advice to reduce the risk of having to go through a residential tenancy tribunal. I don't have any experience with a human rights tribunal, but expect that it would be even more of a hassle _even if you win_. 

Of course you can take the risk that the refused tenant won't bother. And I think the OP should know what the risks are. Based on my experiences, it is worth trying to avoid the risk.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

Every landlord should be concerned about and know the rules and regulations regarding rental applications. I no longer deal with "affordable housing". Every landlord should be aware that applications have limitations and are basically a picture in time of a specific tenant. 

Tenants can and do change during the course of a tenancy, they leave their employers, they develop addictions and mental health problems, the separate from their husbands or wives, they have children and buy pets and eventually even die. 

As professional housing providers, our challenge is to work through all these transitions in a relatively sane manner. The publication on the matter can be found here http://www.ohrc.on.ca/en/human-rights-housing-overview-landlords-brochure and I highly recommend you read it. This is the one for Ontario. 

The Code says what business practices are acceptable and what information you may ask for when choosing tenants:

Rental history, credit references and/or credit checks may be requested. A lack of rental or credit history should not be viewed negatively.
You can ask for income information, but you must also ask for and consider it together with any available information on rental history, credit references and credit checks (such as through Equifax Canada).
You can only consider income information on its own when no other information is made available.
You can only use income information to confirm the person has enough income to cover the rent. Unless you are providing subsidized housing, it is illegal to apply a rent-to-income ratio such as a 30% cut-off rule.

You can ask for a “guarantor” to sign the lease – but only if you have the same requirements for all tenants, not just for people identified by Code grounds, such as recent immigrants or people receiving social assistance. 

In my company, which happens to rent hundreds of properties per year, we use the following guidelines when evaluating applications. 

First my main criteria is if the person can pay the rent in full and on time. Over the year if there is one group of people I could say are the most likely to default on rent I would say that home born canadians are the absolute worst offenders. I'm not generally worried about new immigrants they tend to be very law abiding and respectful. 

In 2011 - 2012 when I was managing buildings I found that all of the people who required me to pay for a Sheriff for the eviction were on Social Assistance. 100%. But we did have many other tenants that were on social assistance and they did manage their money properly and paid their rent. I guess the appropriate statement to say would be, that it's a very high risk group and that if they are bad tenants they are among the worst bad tenants you can find so tread very carefully. 

So of your question, I think did you ever declare bankruptcy is not useful information. People who declared bankruptcy can be excellent tenants, they can't buy a house so they'll be there for a while. Many tenants have money management problems as a landlord in the housing providing business, you need to insulate your business against this type of risk. So they don't pay on the first they pay on the 5th or the 15th. If you have a heart attack every time this happens, you're in the wrong business. You have to know what to do and what your plan is. Plus someone may have declared bankruptcy for many many reasons, finding out why is important, but finding out when is equally important. If you declared bankruptcy 10 years ago then I don't care. 

Ever been evicted is one I ask on my applications, no one ever says yes and in Ontario thanks to privacy legislation I'll never know. I guess a landlord might tell me but even that's not likely. A landlord wants to make his problems my problems so they'll lie like a rug to get rid of their deadbeat. 

Ever been convicted of a felony... is again protected by privacy rights legislation. You can ask the tenant to apply for a clearance certificate from the Police but it takes forever to come in and so for most people it's just not practical. You'll be the only people asking tenants for this. 

All I tend to care about is the independently verifiable information. 

1 - The person and what they are like to deal with during the application process and showing. 
2 - Work history verified by pay stubs or copies of internet deposits etc. 
3 - Credit Check

The reason I'm doing this is to check if they can pay the rent. That is first and foremost in my mind and because of that I'm able to qualify a lot of people other people just cannot/will not. Self Employed and Newly Immigrated particularly. I have no criteria except for can this person pay the rent. 

It's now been 5 years since I've had evict one of my rental tenants and I hope to keep the streak going for another 5 years. 

*Also I would love Just a Guy who is an expert landlord with many super duper cash flowing properties to show me where in Canada you can get a tenant out for being threatened. I really want because I'm incredibly curious where this is. Tenant have threatened to punch me in the face and one started ripping out the wall one time. (I'm so charming that's why) Both these tenants took 3-5 months to evict.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

One of the benefits to renting in multiple provinces, it knowing that the world has rules that differ in different places...

http://www.albertaeviction.com/albe...w-when-you-can-use-a-24-hour-eviction-notice/

Got that by typing in 24 hour eviction canada into Google.

Do I need to find references for each individual province? I admit they aren't all the same, and may not work in every province, but Ontario law (I didn't check Ontario, just did a Google search) doesn't rule them all. 

Perhaps you know of a human rights case where the landlord was brought befor a tribunal for asking if they'd ever been convicted?

I agree with you however, that most of those questions are useless...but if you put in the clause, and have them sign it as I suggested earlier, you may have a legal way to evict them if you can prove they lied. I've never tried it myself, but it may work.

did you know there are provinces that don't have recourse mortgages too?

Oh, and did you miss the thread where we had a real "super duper cash slowing property" example pulled listings, had someone (not me) find a kijiji ad for a different suite in the same building to prove rent, etc?

Of course, because you don't know it, it can't possibly exist...

There are interesting laws and places all over canada...its a big place, not good for small minds.


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## Davis (Nov 11, 2014)

So we are making progress on providing useful information to the OP based on evidence. here is what we know so far:
1. In Alberta, you can evict someone who has threatened the landlord or another tenant very quickly.
2. In Ontario, it seems to be that it is not easy to do so in practice.

We do not have any evidence yet that it is possible to evict in any province or territory:
3. A tenant who has lied on an application about having been evicted/convicted/bankrupt.
4. A tenant who makes the landlord or other tenants "feel threatened" (e.g., a convicted murderer). 

The door is wide open for evidence to support these assertions. We can all learn something here. 

It would be nice if we could stick to the facts, and leave out snide remarks and sarcasm, which really don't help the discussion.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

It's not a 24 hour eviction it's a notice to terminate with 24 hr notice. http://www.servicealberta.gov.ab.ca/621.cfm

HOW MUCH NOTICE TO TERMINATE DOES A LANDLORD HAVE TO GIVE A TENANT FOR
DAMAGE OR ASSAULT?
The landlord can apply to the court or RTDRS for an order terminating the tenancy or the landlord can serve
the tenant with a notice to terminate at least 24 hours before the termination date stated in the notice. The
landlord’s notice to the tenant must:
1. Be in writing,
2. Give the address of the residential premises,
3. Be signed by the landlord,
4. State the reason for the termination, and
5. Set out the termination date and time.
If a landlord is apprehensive that even more damage, or further assaults, are likely to occur in the 24-hour
notice period, the landlord can go to court or RTDRS seeking an order for the immediate possession of the
residential premises and removal of the tenant. The landlord should have evidence to present.
If a landlord serves a 24-hour notice, and the tenant does not vacate the residential premises within the notice
period, the landlord must, within 10 days of the date of termination specified in the notice, apply to court
or RTDRS for an order to end the tenancy and to get vacant possession of the residential premises. If the
landlord does not make the court application within the 10 days following the date of termination, then the 24-
hour notice is not binding. In other words, the landlord is considered to have never given a notice to terminate.

My point being that here in Ontario, it's a 10 day notice for Impaired Safety and a few years ago I had a case where the tenant was charged with attempted murder and it took me nine months to evict the person responsible. If you'd bothered to read the instructions on the form, you'd see that it's only a 24 hour notice and that you give it to the tenant and she/he complies then you just won the lottery. Again in my experience, tenants that have threatened or punched you aren't really going to shake in their shoes and immediately vacate. If it's even practical or possible for them to do so. Most of us here on CMF have more resources than 90% of tenants and we'd be really pressed for time if we had to arrange moving in 24 hours. 

I'm again not sure how long it takes to get a courtdate in Alberta for anything but here it's at least a couple weeks. So again not a 24 hour eviction. 

As for a human rights case where a landlord has been brought to court for asking about convictions not specifically but as I wrote above, I don't want or need to ask questions for which I can't verify an answer. I guess that might trap a few very low IQ criminals but I've probably figured those out already. If as a practical matter, I need a clearance certificate that takes 3 weeks to a month to get, requires taking a trip to a downtown Toronto police station, and costs $30 before I can approve an application... well you're gonna weed out about 99% of the normal candidates, and lose a couple months of mortgage payments. You might even be surprised to know that I did actually deal with this situation last year, I rented above a pharmacy with controlled substances downstairs. I estimate it cost the owner about $200 per month and it took me 3-4 months before I found someone. This in an area where I rent places in days. 

You cannot evict people for lying but I heard of a landlord in India chopped off his tenant's sons arms off http://www.news-articles-jobs.com/cruel-landlord-chops-hands-minor-child-gujrat/ so maybe if you put a clause in your lease that might be legal in India. 

I do know that some provinces have no recourse mortgages. I know some States have that too and others don't. Also I know some other things like I know that some cats call polydactyls have more than 5 toes on each foot. If you need a mental break right now and want to go visit cut cats with a more than average number of toes... http://mentalfloss.com/article/50629/polydactyl-cats-charm-big-feet

While I do not have a large mind, I can smell bullshit with my big ugly nose, so at least I have that going for me. 

You should reference the thread if you remember it so well: regardless there's more to landlording than cash flow. There is a value to know the market your property is in and be able to live close to it so you can keep an eye on it. For the last 10 years, appreciation is where it's at and even though I don't like that business model, I'm not going to tell landlords to buy mobile homes in Timbuktu because of $100 per month in cash flow. That's still cash flow negative when you take into account repairs and vacancy and lost income due to bad tenants.


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## Just a Guy (Mar 27, 2012)

I should know better than to be pulled off topic by berubeland, though I'll concede her nose must know the smell well considering what's just below it. 

To get back on topic, Google is once again your friend...

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/reho/yogureho/fore/gest/gest_003.cfm

It also seems to be a provincial matter...I found a reference for BC where they say you can't ask about criminal record. That being said, it seems, in reading this, not so much that you can't ask, more so that it can't be a deciding factor and people aren't required to answer. 

http://www.cmhc-schl.gc.ca/en/co/reho/yogureho/fore/gest/gest_003.cfm


Like the sin number, no one has to disclose because it's not needed in most cases. I can't reject someone because they wouldn't provide their sin. However, if my credit check reveals a similar person, then I can require a sin in order to make sure I get the correct information. 

So, best to check your provincial laws.


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## Berubeland (Sep 6, 2009)

http://noodlytime.com/posts/landlord-doge-2


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