$100K to get out? Landlords say they’re facing outrageous 'cash for keys' demands

Cash for

keys

is when

landlords

offer tenants money to leave the sky. It's not supposed to be the limit, but we found it can also be the horror we're hearing right now is that tenants want a hand just as much as renters. tenants are demanding. there is a lot of money left to spend the tenants are again using this new power

they

have to get just a few crumbs from the

landlords

the landlords are crying because it is causing total chaos it is like the wild west money for

keys

it is a growing battle in the crisis real estate in Canada and for smaller owners, especially the cost is through the roof, what is it, what is affecting you?

The stress, the unknown, with a teacher's salary. Norma D Silva scrimped and saved to invest in two properties, living in one and renting the other. another one was my very small little Nest Egg um I wanted to retire this year and I don't think that's going to happen um like I said the unknown uncertainty is crushing DVA sold her rental property in August because with rising mortgage rates, she says she's no longer He could afford to finance it, but his buyer can't move because his tenant won't move out unless Silva makes it worth it. Was that what went through her mind when her tenant said no?

Leaving him was just unfathomable, unfathomable, like this is my property that I've worked so hard for and it's like my property is being held hostage. The dva investment property is a condo in this Westend neighborhood in Toronto, it is a gentrified area and the rents are not cheap. Silva says her tenant, who moved in about a year and a half ago, doesn't want to move and feels entitled to ask for a lot of money to leave because he assumes she will make a profit on the sale of her condo and can afford to pay sounds

outrageous

maybe even illegal we were surprised to discover how many stories like that there are out there we have some tenants asking for 100,000 some tenants asking the landlord to buy them land we have other tenants asking the landlord to buy them a property it sounds ridiculous asking an owner that amount of money.

He is a pargal who is helping D Silva and many other small landlords get their cases heard before landlord and tenant Ontario. board business is booming and most of their new cases are

cash

for keys, so what's here? So this cabinet alone is our hearing cabinet for 2024, this is January 4th for next year, these are the ones that you will use next year. big increase big increase dating back to 2020 where we almost had around 400 cases of

cash

for keys alone until this year where we have almost a thousand cases, what is behind the increase? The domino effects of interest rates, many times the owners who buy properties bought them at the same time with variable rates and now that the rates have increased and the rents do not entail those expenses, the owners have no choice but to list and sell well if

they

have a tenant who knows his rights and who knows that he does not have them.

They have to leave because they have the right to stay in the unit until a hearing is held and that's the problem, getting a hearing for an eviction order at the landlord-tenant meeting can take months due to a backlog of dozens of Thousands of cases that owners complain about. An increasing number of tenants are trying to take advantage of those delays, and that's supporting more landlords in the Corners. We deal with a lot of small homeowners, a lot of homeowners who come to us crying, a lot of small homeowners who come to us with their keys and I say, you know, I hear my keys, I can't do it anymore.

There are huge significant financial losses for some homeowners, especially the smaller homeowner. Deli and his team meet every week to update each other on their cases. They say that tenants are not only demanding. more sometimes they refuse to pay rent until they get what they want the police say they can't do anything about it only the board can resolve disputes between landlords and tenants like I have landlords crying because I'm out of money and the tenant owes me 60 something in the rent and I have to pay two mortgages, interest rates, renewal of the mortgages and I still don't have a court date, it's up to 9 months right now, what are some of the words landlords use? extortion extortion is fair why should I do it?

I pay them this money that they ask us all the time is this legal solution the FTB the short answer despite the owner's growing frustration is it legal to negotiate a cash deal for the keys and while the owners call it fraud the long delays in the meeting They are giving tenants the edge. Tenant advocates say it's time for any landlord to complain to me about the landlord. The man and the tenants' council can go to the arena. Jordy Dent is the executive director of the Metro Tenants Association Federation. There are absolutely more renters who are using something like this. kind of delaying the landlord-tenant meeting, um, because it's put a lot of landlords in a box, um, but again, that's not a bad thing from our perspective.

D says more people than ever are struggling to pay skyrocketing rents and are tired of calling it tenant revenge online. On forums, tenants encourage each other to get everything they can from their landlords before handing over the keys. Some people ask for six figures, others ask for land or a down payment on a house. Absolutely that's wonderful. Do you think it's wonderful? um because they have the right to make that look, a lot of these people, myself included, are paying tens of thousands of dollars for a place to live and a place to rent. um, when you pay that money, it doesn't just go to the ether that you get. rights for that now landlords have been using their rights to get a good deal for decades, throughout the entire rental crisis we're going through landlords have been popping the caviar and popping the champagne.

Den says eviction fraud is the number one complaint. His group deals with tenants who he says are often kicked out so landlords can raise the rent or sell for a profit. He has no sympathy for any homeowner, big or small, what does he say to homeowners who basically saved their money to buy a house? property and who could now lose that property we are not talking to millionaires what do you say to family homeowners who are suffering as a result of this? I tell them to learn about investment risk. Well, again, I don't really focus on individual family owners.

I look at the overall market, it's fine and if you look at the overall market today, owners have never had it better, it's a golden age of profits, uh, increasing stocks in their homes, uh, tax cuts and tax credits that they're experiencing. big right now if you take a look at the population potion of tenants the tenants are being absolutely beaten they are paying exorbitant rents they are being evicted left right in the center they can't enforce their rights uh again that's the population that I like the most What matters then is his message to the owners is to hold on, that is the risk that an investment entails.

My message to landlords is welcome to what tenants have been experiencing for the last two decades, so yes, when a landlord has to fight, who is in a million? You know who is better off than almost any tenant. I know, yes, I'm going to tell them to hold on. There is no official count of how many tenants are trying to take advantage of cash for key deals or the damage it can cause, but choosing not to. paying may be even riskier are three, three bedrooms, but I think Pella is finally in his house, but she says he has lost tens of thousands of dollars even though she refused to pay her tenant to move out. out.

I wasn't willing to pay a single cent for a person who is trying to scam take advantage of the system take advantage of people like us Zela and her family had rented their house for a year but when the time came for her daughter to start school nearby, she notified the tenant. he refused to leave and stopped paying rent while waiting months for a hearing his tenant offered him a deal he said you know we can negotiate I ask him what do you mean we can negotiate you already owe me over $20,000 what do you mean ? I mean and he says: Pay me $50,000.

I will leave next month. He had a pain in his stomach. It was like $50,000 and you're out. How dare you say that this year because of those delays in the meeting it took a year and? half so that Zella finally got an eviction order, but she received this when she came to serve it, her tenant was not here, but there was a group of strangers, how many people were here when you arrived when you with the order with the eviction order one two three. four four people yes and there's no sign of her actual tenant no, but these people had paid her rent yes, yes, so that's the damage on top of the damage when they finally got to her own house.

Zala's tenant owed $4,000 in unpaid rent and on top of that she says he made money off her property while she was bankrupt. I didn't expect this to happen in Canada and there is no accountability to the landlord and tenant like him, but we are suffering as honest, hardworking citizens trying to survive in Canada, we are suffering for no apparent reason, the inability of the landlord and tenant board to Addressing this and staying on schedule is causing this subculture of anarchy. D Silva's financial strain is only getting worse, he says he spent dozens. of thousands of dollars in legal fees and paying Airbnb's costs to his buyer until the sale closes in March, he hoped to get a board hearing to remove his tenant by then or risk losing the sale.

I mean, I know the rights tenants have. but when I think about how hard I've worked to create a responsible existence and to have that taken away from me is hard to accept and to have someone else control that, you know, Yanna, there's a lot more to this story, but can we talk? about Norma D Silva for a moment, what's the latest with her? Well, she finally got a hearing scheduled for the end of this month after 5 months of waiting. Now, if her case is resolved on that single day, it still means she might have to wait. up to a month to get an eviction order and more to get a sheriff to enforce it if your tenant doesn't leave voluntarily, so that's what you were looking at and decided you might be running out of time before your buyer moved out , so he decided to settle with his tenant for an undisclosed amount, he said those are the terms of the agreement, those numbers are confidential, so that's where it is, as we talk about the landlord-tenant meeting constantly referring to the delays, what is the status of those pesos?

Well, last spring there was a backlog of almost 40,000 cases and we have tried to get an answer as to what the number of backlogged cases is now and we just haven't been able to get that information from the board. what you told us was that you hired 60 new part-time and full-time judges to help streamline and get cases heard more quickly and you've also streamlined your processes to help make that happen and you know you've given us some really strong personal experiences here, but if we take a step back, do you have any idea how many smaller owners there might be in this situation?

We don't have a real idea because no one is calculating it, but we do know from parallel points that their numbers have skyrocketed; Another way to look at it is how many smaller landlords there are and according to a Statistics Canada report in 2020, about 8% of Canadian households reported rental income renting out an investment property or a basement suite in their main home and among people among smaller homeowners, that number has increased over the years due to lower interest rates and people could afford to buy investment properties that people are now trying to get rid of due to the interest rates and that's why they are also looking for tenants, if they can't get rid of it, they are looking for tenants who can pay higher rent, that's why the situation is so complicated for the people who are in this boat, but it's also complicated because tenants are so vulnerable right now that they totally are and this money for keys phenomenon is simply a symptom of a broken housing, a broken housing system and a housing crisis.

It is very difficult for anyone to find an affordable place to live and if the landlord wants you to leave, it is very difficult to find someone else to go to. Thank you for doing this, thank you.