Small Landlords Do More, Stress Less

A group of small landlords laments the difficulty in collecting past-due rent, or unpaid rent from tenants who abandon their suites. Questions arise - "How do I make a claim with provincial Rentalsman?", "Should I use collection agencies?", "Should I just write off the bad debt?", or "What can I do to collect it myself?"

Instead of focusing on collections, we shift to look at the bigger picture, at the system - "Why am I having to do collections?" "What is it about my renting methods that produces this problem of collections?"

Turns out that none of these small landlords do formal credit checks on rental applicants prior to signing leases. Turns out that a few retroactive credit checks on the delinquent tenants show they have very poor credit histories. Several landlords change their methods, and end up using formal credit checks of all applicants. The problem of collections dissappears for them. Changing the system, changing the method, allows them to handle a few more suites, make a little more profit, and do it with less effort and stress.