Another tenants rights info session: Feb 24

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The tenants rights forums are interesting because tenants often ask questions that lead me to conclude that they believe they have far more rights than they do, and do not know how to protect the rights they have.

At the moment, the biggest source of confusion seems to be around preferential rates.

For years, tenants have been only been charged preferential rates because that is all the market would bear.

Now, once a lease comes up for renewal, landlords are increasing their rents to the Max Legal Rents (as determined by HCR), because the market has changed.

Because the difference is often several hundred dollars a month, the tenants believe this is illegal, yet it is not.

Yup.

It is also legal to initiate court proceedings against a tenant for paying late.

There are also a number of illegal things that are being done; Such as landlords "losing" the rent checks of RS tenants, and then taking them to court to seek an eviction because they never received payment.

Because such actions happen much more often now than in the past, some people reach the conclusion that they are tied to race.

The tenants rights forums have the potential to provide tenants the knowledge needed to reach fully informed conclusions.

Low income, long term tenants are in a difficult situation that they did not create.

Photo of the complete crowd in one shot:

Note: this photo was not taken by me.