Rental Board's Power

Come to Quebec where the idea of private property takes a peculiar flavor. To anyone who owns property here, it's not news to know the laws are stacked against owners. We severely under estimate how much so.

This is what a couple of sisters in St. Laurent is finding out. They discovered that the rental board has more power than you do in your own house.

"We hear many stories of landlords who aren't prepared to go before the rental board. Although the board may look less austere than a courthouse, it's still incredibly complicated," said Messier, whose association holds regular workshops for landlords on how to repossess their homes. "The law very clearly protects the renter's interest. Our position is that the law makes it too difficult for landlords to take back their own homes."

A truer statement has never been made. It's becoming increasingly pointless to own land here. You become nothing more than a puppet of "la regie." Personally, I plan to use my business as a form of "rental" pension.

A neighbour is a notary who specialized in landlord/tenant issues. She's helped out  with a couple of cases recently. The mentality seems to be that "landlords owe" tenants something. One particular tenant felt she was within her rights to redecorate her apartment and having the owners take the bill. "C'est la loi" she told us. Of course, it isn't and our lawyer took care of it. But not all tenants are like this and as philosophical owners, you can't paint everyone with the same brush. I wish the government would think the same away when it comes to owners.

I'm not questioning if the rental board is fair or not (I don't think that it overtly goes against owners so long as they don't break their rules, the point is it's not the rental boards place to determine who owners want as their tenants. Their money, their risk, their right. Make provisions to make sure tenants are protected but legislating who you can have as a tenant is not their business.

This is a perfect example of the wrongheadedness of "one size fits all" laws in society. The majority of landlords aren't slumlords but are presumed to be such according to our laws.

And that's not cool.