Update:

The Five Most Commonly Reported "Void Clauses" in Leases: No Pets Allowed, Damage Deposit, No Subletting, Tenant Required to Purchase Contents Insurance & No Overnight Guests

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It’s the clause that has no claws, yet many landlords still use it, and many prospective tenants still fear it.

The infamous “no pets allowed” line is frequently inserted into lease agreements, sending many animal-owning apartment seekers scattering.

However, what some do not know is that the clause is void in Ontario. And it’s not the only one.

Does your lease say you can’t have overnight guests? Void. Obligated to pay a damage deposit? Void.

Due to a general lack of awareness on the parts of both landlords and tenants on how to bring a lease in line with Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act, with all its rules that govern living arrangements, the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations (FMTA) has come up with what it believes to be a solution.

This fall, the FMTA will roll out its version of a standardized lease agreement, an 11-page document they want all landlords in Ontario to use. Similar templates exist in other jurisdictions, including parts of Australia.

The standardized lease would lay out the rights and responsibilities of each party as stipulated by the tenancies act, as well as room for negotiating charges and services provided, such as electricity bills or parking fees. In other words, “clauses that are not void,” said Anita Agrawal, the FMTA’s vice-chair.

“Our first priority is to propose it and have it legislated, and then to give tenants the ability to better negotiate with their landlord,” she said.

The FMTA’s board is currently working on a promotional campaign for their “fair lease” concept and approaching MPPs.

But on the government end, it seems there is little interest in the idea.

“Considering the unique nature of each tenancy agreement in Ontario, we believe landlords and tenants should have the flexibility to decide how best to determine the lease agreement,” said Richard Stromberg, a spokesman for the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing.

The concept of a standardized lease partly stems from the numerous phone calls fielded by the FMTA’s hotline from tenants questioning certain sections of their lease.

“When one of (the void) clauses appears, we tell tenants they don’t even have to debate it. They can tell the landlord or can go straight to the Landlord and Tenant Board,” said Geordie Dent, the FMTA’s executive director.

While Stromberg pointed out that landlords are obligated to give new renters a government-produced “Information for New Tenants” brochure, the document only touches on one of the five void clauses mentioned by the FMTA: the clause regarding damage deposits.

Daryl Chong, president of the Greater Toronto Apartment Association, which represents owners of multi-unit residences, said the tenancies act “already acts as a kind of standardized lease” as landlords must follow it.

At the Ontario Landlords Association, which acts on behalf of small residential landlords, spokesperson Liz Dong said the association does its best to educate its members on how to properly draft leases.

Should there be a greater push for a standardized lease in the near future, Dong said “it will require all stakeholders to create it,” mentioning tenant groups, “huge corporate landlords,” and landlords of small- and medium-sized buildings.

Top 5 most commonly reported void clauses in leases

• No pets allowed

• Requiring a tenant to pay a damage deposit

• No overnight guests

• Requiring a tenant to get contents insurance

• No subletting

Limits Set On Guideline Rent Increases

On Wednesday June 13, 2012 the government of Ontario passed legislation that amended the Residential Tenancies Actas it relates to guideline rent increases. Previous to this amendment the guideline increase was set by the Consumer Price Index (CPI) and would go as high as the index allowed. Now the guideline increase is still set by the CPI but it is capped at 2.5 percent. This means that if the CPI exceeds 2.5 percent you will only receive an increase of 2.5 percent. Now the guideline is limited between 0-2.5 percent, no more, no less.

Tenant’s Rights – see brochure

Update: see previous posts – May 9, 2010 Taking Advantage of Consumers, March 31, 2009 The Motor Vehicle Dealers Act (MVDA) effective January 1, 2010

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Madeline Leonard paid $66,000 for a 2010 Mazda6 that Ontario's auto regulator says was worth closer to $41,000. STEVE RUSSELL/TORONTO STAR

An Ontario court has slapped a former Mazda auto dealership in Orangeville with $10,000 in penalties after the store pleaded guilty to committing “an unconscionable representation” by selling a car to a woman for more than $25,000 above its real value.

A judge with the Ontario Court of Justice fined Orangeville Mazda $8,000 plus about $2,000 in victim compensation costs on Friday following entry of a guilty plea by a dealership lawyer to the charge under the Consumer Protection Act.

Orangeville Mazda and two employees faced charges of “engaging in unfair practice by making an unconscionable representation,” in March 2010 after an investigation by the Ontario Motor Vehicle Industry Council, which regulates new and used car dealers.

Sale documents showed the dealership had sold an unemployed woman living on a disability pension a 2010 Mazda sedan for about $66,000 including taxes and a trade-in car. But the probe found she should have paid less than $41,000.

The council’s investigation indicated the dealership under president Sunny Bains approved a seven-year loan with a final payment of more than $7,000 when the woman did not qualify because of her personal financial status. Furthermore, the dealership sold several extra products and services for more than double normal prices.

Mazda Canada quickly terminated the dealership’s sales and service agreement for breaching the automaker’s business practices in the deal and other incidents. The move effectively shut down the store’s operations. Mazda also unwound the deal with the woman and compensated her.

The province’s Licence Appeal Tribunal revoked the dealership’s registration. In addition, the tribunal suspended the registration of the two senior store employees.

Charges against the dealership’s manager Mohammed (Moe) Shaikh and employee Kien Trung at the time remain before the courts.

Update:

Credit Card Receipt under magnifying glass

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You may know them as those annoying scraps of paper that litter your purse or flutter from your wallet at inopportune moments, but receipts for credit card transactions are actually worth paying attention to.

Here’s what you probably didn’t know about them, but should:

Receipts are more secure than you think … Unless a merchant made a big mistake, you won’t see your whole credit card number on a receipt. That’s because the federal Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act — an amendment to the Fair Credit Reporting Act that took effect in 2006 — legislated that for better financial security, only the last four or five digits of your card number can appear. That’s why you see something like XXX-XXXX-1234 instead. Your card expiration date can’t show either.

… but receipts aren’t totally thief-proof. Your truncated card number isn’t enough to steal, but those digits “should still be treated as sensitive, confidential information,” says Jamie May, chief investigator at AllClear ID, an identity protection company. Scam artists who get their hands on even part of your card number can use it to phish for the whole number by posing as your credit card issuer or utility company over the phone. “Your card company will never call you and ask you to give them your whole card number,” May says. “A good rule of thumb is to hang up and call them back at a number you know is theirs.”

Receipt numbers aren’t just gobbledygook. Besides the recognizable parts of your receipt, like your truncated card number and the date, are a slew of mysterious numbers. They’re not alien communications; they’re codes that identify the store to the company that processes their credit card payments — for instance, a merchant ID number, an approval code, a reference sequencing number and sometimes a terminal number to identify which cash register took the payment. They’re generally the same on every receipt issued by the same store. Consider them behind-the-scenes details that you can safely ignore.

Store copies and customer copies are the same. You’ve eaten a nice restaurant meal, tallied the tip and signed the credit card receipt — only to realize that you’ve walked off with the wrong copy. “It’s usually not a problem,” says Heather Petersen, CEO of National Merchants Association, a payment and transaction processor. Most companies now put the tip and signature line on both copies of the receipt, so it’s not a big deal if you signed the wrong one. Even if you left only an unsigned copy of the receipt, your dinner will still get charged.

You can sign as Mickey Mouse, but you shouldn’t. Speaking of signatures, they matter more than you think. In an ideal world, a cashier should compare the signature on your receipt to the one on the back of your credit card. However, that rarely happens these days, and certainly no one at the bank is scrutinizing electronic signatures. That doesn’t mean you’re free to scrawl whatever you want, though. “This is a legally binding contract,” says Petersen. “It states right on there that the undersigned agrees to pay.” If the seller does notice that you signed a silly name, he can void the transaction. Plus, if you need to dispute a fraudulent charge, the signature can be a key bit of evidence. Signing your receipt “Kim Kardashian” will not help your case.

Your receipt and your bill may not always match. When your credit card bill arrives, pull out your receipts and make sure what you signed for is actually what you were charged, paying particular attention to transactions where you wrote in a tip. It’s easy for a cashier to mis-key the wrong amount or to fraudulently add a few bucks to your tip. Plus, if you messed up on your math, your cashier will generally go by what the total is — but not always. “It could be a case where they take the liberty of saying, ‘I’m pretty sure they meant $5, so I’m going to charge $5,’” says May. If something is off, your credit card receipt gives you the ammo to dispute the charge with your credit card company.

It’s wise to keep your receipts around. “By far the best reason for archiving receipts is in case of an IRS audit,” says Jake Brereton, marketing manager for Shoeboxed, a company that digitizes customers’ receipts. But it’s also helpful in case you need it to use a warranty, get a refund challenge a charge or (duh!) make a return. With Shoeboxed, you mail in an envelope of receipts and wait for them to be added to your cloud-based archive; basic service starts at $10 a month. To do it yourself, file receipts for a year or two, then shred.

Old-fashioned isn’t best. Remember those clunky machines that cashiers once used to make an imprint of your credit card? Occasionally you still see them (or hand-written receipts) when small businesses lack the infrastructure to process your credit payment electronically. It seems like an innocent throwback, but “those are riskiest kinds of transactions,” warns May, because you have no idea what happens to your credit card number afterwards. If a salesperson hauls out the old-school imprint machine, it’s best to go get some cash.

You don’t have to get a receipt. If you don’t plan on keeping your receipt, don’t ask for it. “It’s better to not have it than throw it in the trash,” points out Petersen — not only because it’s not secure, but because it’s a waste. Plus, many retailers have moved toward electronic receipts and ask whether you’d like your receipt emailed to you vs. receiving a paper receipt. According to some estimates, it takes approximately 9.6 million trees to create the 640,000 tons of paper that go into receipts each year. So, if you choose an emailed receipt or just hit “no receipt” when you pay at the pump, you’ll be doing yourself a financial and environmental favor.

See related: More stores moving to digital receipts