Let’s begin today’s episode of The Chronicles of Canadian Real Estate Chaos with a tale as old as time — or at least as old as the last housing bubble. Picture this: You’re a small-time Ontario landlord, dreaming of passive income, sipping imaginary piña coladas, and patting yourself on the back for choosing real estate over meme stocks. You decide to rent out your lovely, freshly painted, hardwood-floored investment property — and like any good, overleveraged millennial landlord, you outsource the grunt work to a professional.
Enter: The Real Estate Agent™.
You hire this shiny, blazer-wearing, latte-sipping unicorn wrangler, assuming they will protect you from the horrors of bad tenants like some kind of morally-upright rent whisperer. They nod earnestly, say things like “Don’t worry, I’ve got a guy,” and flash you a winning smile that screams “Trust me, I passed a multiple-choice ethics exam once.”
And then?
You get scammed.
Welcome to Landlord: The Horror Anthology. Starring: Sanaulhaq Zarawar and Mischa Hamara, two Ontarians who thought “vetting” was a given — only to learn that the real estate gods laugh heartily at verbal promises and legally unenforceable nods.
“Trust Me, Bro” Is Not a Clause
Zarawar’s story is classic. He hires a Realtor to find a “good tenant” for his Whitby home. Months later, the rent dries up faster than Alberta’s lakes, and he realizes the tenant’s application was a fraudulent fever dream of fake employers, ghost roommates, and more red flags than a communist parade.
Turns out the vetting he assumed was happening never actually was. The Realtor apparently played Real Estate Mad Libs with the lease, shrugged, and walked away with a tidy commission. Zarawar, on the other hand, was left with a tenant who pays in vibes and owes him $40,000 in unpaid rent and utilities.
Imagine hiring a wedding planner who books your reception at Chuck E. Cheese, then saying, “Well, you never said you wanted a good venue.” That’s where we are.
The Fine Print Fairy Doesn’t Exist
The real kicker? Standard Realtor contracts don’t actually require vetting. Nope. No background checks, no reference calls, no checking if “Bob the CEO of McRent-a-Lot Inc.” actually exists. You, dear landlord, are expected to request that explicitly — and if you don’t, then legally it’s your bad. Because everyone reads contracts, right?
According to Toronto paralegal Bita Di Lisi (also known as the adult in the room), landlords need to understand that “verbal promises are not legally binding.” Which is both legally accurate and deeply hilarious in a soul-crushing way. If verbal promises counted, I’d be married to my high school crush, and my dog would finally stop eating socks.
Meanwhile, In the “I Can’t Be Bothered” Department
Pamela O’Hagan, a property manager from Brampton, confirms what most of us already suspected: many Realtors couldn’t spot a fake tenant application if it came with a cover letter titled “Fraudulent Application.” One agent submitted an applicant with a forged pay stub and fake references — the red flags so obvious they were practically waving themselves.
But why should Realtors care? It’s fast cash, baby! A commission on a rental is just low-effort bread and butter for someone who’d rather be selling condos in Mississauga than sifting through pay stubs from “Maple Syrup Logistics Inc.” The system rewards speed and penalizes diligence. And the landlord? That sucker’s on the hook if things go south.
Let’s be clear: the agent gets paid no matter what. If the tenant stops paying rent, trashes the hardwood, or turns your investment property into a meth lab/art gallery hybrid — your agent still walks away with their commission, sipping oat milk lattes and ghosting your texts.
“Read the Contract,” They Say. “Do Your Own Vetting,” They Say.
So now we come to the hard truth: vetting tenants isn’t the Realtor’s job. Even if they say it is. Even if they pinky swear. Even if they smile like your cousin at Thanksgiving promising they’ll help clean up after dinner. Unless it’s in writing, it doesn’t count.
According to Di Lisi (bless her pragmatic heart), landlords should always do the vetting themselves. Because, spoiler alert: this is your investment. Not your Realtor’s. Not your mom’s. Not your therapist’s. Yours.
And if you think the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO) is going to swoop in and make you whole, let me gently laugh in Ontario Civil Bureaucracy™. RECO can fine Realtors, sure — a slap-on-the-wrist $5,000 at most — but they won’t get you your $40,000 in lost rent or your living room back from squatters who turned it into a TikTok studio.
As of May, RECO had received nine complaints related to vetting. Nine. In a province where every third landlord seems to be nursing a fresh tenant trauma. Out of those, only six agents had to take a little course on verifying tenants. The other three? Still under “review.” Which is bureaucracy-speak for “We’ll get to it sometime between your next mortgage payment and the death of the sun.”
A Comedy of Contracts
Then there’s Mischa Hamara. Commercial landlord. Thought he was playing in the big leagues. Paid a Realtor $14,000 to secure a tenant who… never moved in. That’s five months’ rent in commission — for doing the leasing equivalent of catfishing your grandma.
Naturally, the Realtor offered to find him another tenant at a “reduced rate,” because when you burn someone’s house down, it’s polite to offer them a fire extinguisher for 10% off.
Mischa wisely declined.
What Landlords Want (Besides Rent Checks That Clear)
So now some landlords are calling for reform. They want contract changes. They want vetting to be a built-in requirement. They want some accountability — maybe even a clause that says, “If you promise to vet tenants and don’t, we can sue you for a week’s worth of stress hives.”
They’re asking for what normal people would call “professional standards” and what Realtors will likely call “inconvenient paperwork.”
And fair enough. Because right now, the rental game in Ontario feels like buying a used car from someone who assures you it runs fine — and then watching it explode halfway down the 401. When you call the seller, they shrug and say, “Didn’t say it had brakes in the contract, buddy.”
The “Professional Tenant” Problem
Let’s not forget: there’s an actual rise in rental fraud. According to RentPanda, 9.1% of applications now contain fraudulent information — a fourfold increase since 2022. That’s right. Almost 1 in 10 renters may be trying to game the system, like reverse escape artists breaking into leases they’ll never pay for.
These aren’t just flaky folks who forgot rent day. These are organized, document-forging, identity-manipulating professionals who see “rental housing” as a challenge to conquer — like some kind of evil Mario Kart track.
And landlords — mostly small-time, mortgage-juggling, retirement-fund-patching folks — are left trying to play detective with no training, no backup, and a legal system slower than a Timbit in molasses.
Lessons in Pain and Passive Income
Let’s be real: small landlords are in a rough spot. The housing market is nuts. Rents are high. Mortgages are higher. And the Landlord and Tenant Board has the turnaround time of a sleepy sloth in a snowstorm. If your tenant goes rogue, you’ll be waiting months — possibly years — for a resolution. By then, you’ll have missed three family holidays, gained an ulcer, and possibly aged a decade.
All of which makes it extra infuriating when the one person you hired to help you avoid this mess — your agent — turns out to be less Sherlock Holmes and more “Guy Who Hands Out Flyers.”
The Takeaway: You’re on Your Own, Sweetheart
So what have we learned, boys and girls?
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Realtors are not obligated to vet tenants unless your contract says so.
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Verbal promises are worthless in the court of law and the court of common sense.
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The Real Estate Council will give your agent a slap on the wrist — but won’t get your money back.
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Vetting is your responsibility, even if you’ve paid someone who implied otherwise.
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And if you don’t check a tenant’s references, credit, social media, and background like they’re applying to babysit your child, then congrats — you may be leasing your house to someone who believes rent is optional and eviction is mythical.
Final Thoughts: Welcome to the Ontario Rental Thunderdome
If you’re an Ontario landlord, here’s your checklist:
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Never trust a smile in a suit.
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Read the damn contract.
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Add vetting to it. In writing. With receipts.
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Do your own background checks anyway.
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Have a good cry.
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Consider therapy.
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Then rinse and repeat, because that mortgage isn’t going to pay itself.
Because in the wild world of Canadian rentals, the only thing more dangerous than a bad tenant is believing someone else is doing the hard part for you.
And if all else fails, consider your next real estate investment to be a nap. It’s the only asset class in this province that won’t cost you 40 grand and your sanity.
The end. Or, more accurately, “To be continued… at your next Landlord and Tenant Board hearing in 2028.”