What about the landlords?

Here are some interesting points that suggest this mess is going to get even messier.

It runs downhill.

• If you can’t work, you can’t pay your rent
• If you can’t pay your rent, the landlord can’t make his mortgage payment
• If the landlord can’t make his mortgage payment, the Banks can’t meet their obligations
• If the banks can’t meet their obligation….
• Etc etc etc,

Yet, the kind old hearts at the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) immediately jump on their favourite old bandwagon and the whips landlords by saying they can’t evict any unpaying tenants.

But then the RTB forgot the next step about actually helping the Landlords needing to meet THEIR financial obligations.  The RTB should be lobbying for a Provincial law that says Banks have to waive the landlords mortgage payments for those whose tenants have stopped paying rent.

Even though the RTB claims they have landlords’ interests at heart this is clear evidence that the RTB only cares about the tenants and not the landlords.

Twist. The new law says that a landlord can in fact move to end a tenancy if… “the tenant is putting the landlord’s property at significant risk”. So, what’s the definition of significant risk?  To a landlord an unpaying tenant that is causing a bank to foreclose on their property IS A SIGNIFICANT RISK.

Also keep this in mind about the banks. 

If 1,000 landlords can’t make their mortgage payments the bank will be unable to follow up with foreclosures for a long long time. They are not geared up with manpower to initiate foreclosures and neither are the courts.  There will be a huge log jam. Plus what bank would all of a sudden want to own 1000 properties?  And who would they sell then to in order to recover their loss?

This whole situation is going to explode in the next couple weeks and no one can foresee how this will shake down.

So, all I can say is PLEASE STAY HOME and let's kills the spread of this virus now and then this will be over within a couple months instead of a year!

Bill Ferguson