Am I a tenant?

In the early days of this new school year we have seen many hundreds of students moving to the City. Carleton University and University of Ottawa students seemed to have a monopoly on all of the Uhaul trucks this past weekend as they were moving into new apartments and residences. WIth the great excitement of a new apartment sometimes comes an unfortunate realization that the "great" room mate is perhaps less than ideal. It is no surprise then, that the phones at Quinn Thiele Mineault Grodzki LLP have started to ring with some rather fundamental and basic questions about Landlord and Tenant law. Michael Thiele, one of the founding partners has extensive experience in residential landlord and tenant law and has been fielding and increasing number of questions in the last few days from students. Perhaps the most common question is about the respective rights of the people living in the apartment or house. There have been many inquiries from people who have signed a lease as the sole tenant with the clear understanding that they would be having room mates to help pay for the rent. As these tenants have discovered, the joy of collecting rent from room mates and the attitude of these room mates towards the condition, maintenance and repair of the property is often times below their own standards. The question, as these realities sink in, is what are the legal rights of everyone in the house or apartment. The relatively short answer is that the person named on the lease, as the tenant, is the person in control of the rental unit. That tenant has the sole power (amongst the occupants of the rental unit) to decide who stays, who goes, and when they go. The tenant identified in the lease as the "tenant", is responsible to the landlord for all of the rent, for any damage to the unit, and for ensuring that all of the obligations imposed under the Residential Tenancies Act are maintained (ex. ordinary cleanliness, noise, etc.). If the tenant's room mates do not pay, cause damage, are unruly, it is the tenant who will be responsible to the landlord to pay for those damages even if the tenant did not cause the damage or the tenant paid his or her "share" of the rent. Certainly, being the sole "tenant" on the lease carries with it great responsibility and liability. However, being the sole tenant is not necessarily a bad thing. If you are an assertive person and are able to maintain control over the rental unit, and you vet your room-mates carefully and you get them to sign a reasonable contract, you can have the benefits of having room mates (share rent) while limiting liability and risk. Under such circumstances, if a room mate does turn out to be a dud then you may require them to leave in short order in accordance with the terms of your agreement with them. A room mate does not have the protection of the Residential Tenancies Act as they are not a "tenant". Hence, you are not forced to put up with a room mate who might be a "nightmare". Getting rid of a room mate, who signed the lease as a "tenant" is much more difficult, if not impossible. For students with Landlord and Tenant questions you may find some answers to those questions by consulting with Michael Thiele, the University of Ottawa Student Legal Aid Clinic, the various community legal clinics in the City, or even the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board website.