Three-bedroom madness

[tomh009]

I didn't realize that condos could enforce such a rule.

Renting until I get back from sabbatical. The previous condo I was at had a "no students" rule. Student status isn't a protected grounds under the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and neither is family status, I believe. Couples are OK but not unrelated parties.

OHRC would likely consider students as a protected group--and it also disallows discrimination based on family status.

[tomh009]

I don’t see how they can enforce “no students”, regardless of whether there is a human rights violation problem. What if I rent to somebody and then they start taking a course? Who is violating the rule? Can I really ask prospective tenants whether they are students? What if I rely on their false assertion that they are not?

The condo corporation will make rules (whether declaration, bylaws or condo rules), hopefully legal ones, and then the responsibility of the owners is to comply with these. In some cases they are very clear, in other cases not so clear, like your examples above. You can always fight them in court but most people would not want to get involved in a legal battle.

There needs to be a blanket rule that a landlord cannot be held liable for actions done by a tenant which they cannot themselves control. Specifically, if I am unable to evict a tenant based on their actions because of the RTA, then I should not be able to held liable for their activity.

I have never seen such a rule. Having a damaging tenant is a risk you take when renting your property, whether it's a condo unit or a single-family dwelling.

[ijmorlan]

I don’t see how they can enforce “no students”, regardless of whether there is a human rights violation problem. What if I rent to somebody and then they start taking a course? Who is violating the rule? Can I really ask prospective tenants whether they are students? What if I rely on their false assertion that they are not?

The condo corporation will make rules (whether declaration, bylaws or condo rules), hopefully legal ones, and then the responsibility of the owners is to comply with these. In some cases they are very clear, in other cases not so clear, like your examples above. You can always fight them in court but most people would not want to get involved in a legal battle.

My point is, let’s ignore whatever feelings I might have about the rule. I rent out my place, and put in the rental advertisement, “condo rule: no students”. I rent to somebody who isn’t a student (let’s just suppose they’re not a student, and ignore the question of what I might do to establish that fact). A few months later they register with the University to take a course, making them a student. The condo finds out about it. Now what?

Clearly, either they have violated the condo rule, or I have. If they have, then what should the condo corporation do? Is there a procedure for a condominium corporation to evict a tenant of a unit owner, or to fine an occupant? If I have, then can I go to the LTB and have the tenant evicted? I’m pretty sure I couldn’t if it was my own rule rather than a condominium rule. What about fines? If I have to pay a fine because my tenant registered as a student, that is flagrantly contrary to justice.

Anyway, “no students” should be considered a human rights violation, and I hope the other poster is correct that the OHRC would consider it so.

[danbrotherston]

The condo corporation will make rules (whether declaration, bylaws or condo rules), hopefully legal ones, and then the responsibility of the owners is to comply with these. In some cases they are very clear, in other cases not so clear, like your examples above. You can always fight them in court but most people would not want to get involved in a legal battle.

My point is, let’s ignore whatever feelings I might have about the rule. I rent out my place, and put in the rental advertisement, “condo rule: no students”. I rent to somebody who isn’t a student (let’s just suppose they’re not a student, and ignore the question of what I might do to establish that fact). A few months later they register with the University to take a course, making them a student. The condo finds out about it. Now what?

Clearly, either they have violated the condo rule, or I have. If they have, then what should the condo corporation do? Is there a procedure for a condominium corporation to evict a tenant of a unit owner, or to fine an occupant? If I have, then can I go to the LTB and have the tenant evicted? I’m pretty sure I couldn’t if it was my own rule rather than a condominium rule. What about fines? If I have to pay a fine because my tenant registered as a student, that is flagrantly contrary to justice.

Anyway, “no students” should be considered a human rights violation, and I hope the other poster is correct that the OHRC would consider it so.

Condo corporations cannot evict tenants (or owners). They can only fine owners (or lien their unit). Also, owners are liable for costs including fines and damages incurred to common property. They can try to recover this from their tenants, but this will probably come down to lease terms and their luck at the Tribunal. This is no different than any landlord (plenty of landlords in KW have been fined by the city for failure to clear sidewalks). And I strongly suspect a request for eviction would fail here.

As for whether this is "contrary to justice" (flagrantly or not) is ENTIRELY a social construct, as is virtually all definitions of justice (hell, even "don't kill people" is not as universal as I would like...and even I don't think it should be fully universal (e.g., assisted suicide and self defence of a deadly threat are both exceptions) but for example, in many parts of the US, people (and governments) believe it is okay to kill someone to defend your property, or even just because they 'scare' you).

So you can argue that a tenant should be liable, but you can also argue that the property owner should be liable, and I don't think either are a particularly strong argument, liability, tenancy, and property are all fairly high-level social constructs themselves, so I think if you feel there's an obvious fundamental answer, it's probably time to question some preconceptions.

But either way, in a practical sense, whether a landlord could recover fines would depend a lot on the specifics of the rental agreement, and also the specifics of the situation, and the particular luck/legal sophistication of the parties involved.

As for the specifics of the "No students" rules...we of course know what this is...it is exactly an end run around human rights. They say "no students" because the goal is to forbid young, single, often transient people. in favour of more established, more permanent, traditional families. But those things are much more protected than "enrolled at a institute of higher education" is.

[ijmorlan]

Condo corporations cannot evict tenants (or owners). They can only fine owners (or lien their unit). Also, owners are liable for costs including fines and damages incurred to common property. They can try to recover this from their tenants, but this will probably come down to lease terms and their luck at the Tribunal. This is no different than any landlord (plenty of landlords in KW have been fined by the city for failure to clear sidewalks). And I strongly suspect a request for eviction would fail here.

The “tenant became a student” situation is entirely different from “tenant didn’t clear sidewalk”. It is by law the responsibility of the property owner to make sure the sidewalk is cleared. One way of discharging this responsibility could be to hire the tenant to do it, but it doesn’t extinguish the responsibility — it just makes the landlord an employer also, and means they need to monitor the quality of the employee’s work.

By contrast, the landlord has no way of even monitoring whether the tenant has become a student, and no way of forcing them to either cease being a student or cease being a tenant if they do become aware the tenant has become a student. So it is entirely unreasonable to in any way penalize the landlord in this situation.

It of course true that all of these concepts are social constructs, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t real. Our modern justice systems have all sorts of concepts deeply ingrained into them, such as the right to have the charges clearly stated and prohibitions on collective punishment. I’m not an expert in the philosophical foundations of justice, but I feel quite confident stating that punishing someone for the actions of another over whom they have no control is definitely fundamentally unjust.

[ijmorlan]

As for the specifics of the "No students" rules...we of course know what this is...it is exactly an end run around human rights. They say "no students" because the goal is to forbid young, single, often transient people. in favour of more established, more permanent, traditional families. But those things are much more protected than "enrolled at a institute of higher education" is.

Actually the goal is to maintain a quiet neighbourhood free of keg parties, which is a perfectly reasonable goal.

But it’s a ham-fisted and inappropriate way of doing so, and it is a deficiency in our human rights legislation if it works as the end run you correctly point out it is.