Check your tenants out cause this could be you.

[ZR]

ORILLIA - Maggie Reilly may be a small woman fighting a legal battle with Goliath, but she’s not going to quit.
Financially and emotionally drained after an eight-year court battle with the Attorney General that had her rental properties seized under the Civil Remedies Act, Reilly insists she’s going to keep fighting until a judge orders the government to give it back.
“I’m not going to lie down,” says Reilly, a soft-spoken redhead who shows a glimpse of fire in her troubled blue eyes.
“If I lose, then every Canadian is at risk of having their property taken by the government on a whim. And that’s scary.”
Her rooming houses at 42 Nottawasaga St. and 60 Front St. in Orillia were seized in 2008 by the Attorney General who claims they were “instruments of crime” and that she and her husband Terry Reilly were profiting from drug dealer tenants.
After months of police surveillance, heavily armed officers in full tactical gear moved in on the units, sending tenants fleeing out back doors.
“They smashed windows and doors, they arrested people who were already down and out and had no other place to go,” said Reilly, who renovated the older homes as rooming houses and single apartments that offered low rents to low income people. She fully admits many of her tenants were drug addicts, battling mental health issues and living on welfare or disability.
Since then, the properties have languished unoccupied with boarded up windows.
The ensuing court case over forfeiture dragged out in Barrie courtrooms for eight years — and still hangs in limbo.

[ZR]

We had a drug dealing / drug smoking tenant, called the police, called child welfare, called everyone else we could think of including tried to evict via the courts with zero help. Under this ridiculous system that protects "the rights" of bad tenants, WTF is a landlord suppose to do? In my case, after exhausting all of the above for over a year, took explaining things in a special way before tenants thought it best they moved along.

[RedSN]

from a 2012 story
http://www.orilliapacket.com/2012/06/13/landlords-ag-continue-court-battle-over-seized-houses


Two Orillia rental properties that operate as "filthy crack houses" must be forfeited to protect the public, a lawyer for the attorney general (AG) argued Wednesday.

But Orillia landlords Terry and Margaret Reilly want their properties back and have hired a lawyer to fight for their cause.

Their rooming houses at 42 Nottawasaga St. and 60 Front St. S. were frozen in 2008 under the Civil Remedies Act, which allows the government to seize property that is determined to be a proceed or an "instrument" of crime. The AG is trying to prove the properties were used mainly for drug trafficking, so it can sell the rooming houses and keep the proceeds.

"The Reillys are not responsible landlords," insisted AG Rosalyn Train, who said drug dealers regularly used the rooms to sell cocaine, weapons and stolen goods for profit. "The purpose of the act is to prevent these properties from being used for trafficking drugs and stolen goods."

I could see it differently if the Reilly's were profiting directly from the illegal activities.

from a 2014 story
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/karen-selick-the-folly-of-civil-forfeiture

Following in the footsteps of her father, an Anglican priest who operated a youth hostel for many years, Mrs. Reilly has worked with disadvantaged people from a young age. Her husband Terry, an insurance broker, shared her concern for the needy. He sat on the local housing committee, aiming to remedy the city’s homelessness problem.

Together, the couple tried to provide private housing for disadvantaged individuals in two rooming houses that they owned. They improved the houses and brought them up to fire code. Most of their tenants were referred to them by social workers, but sometimes even Orillia’s mayor would send people. The tenants were poor, uneducated and often on welfare. Many had addiction or mental health problems.

It sounds like this couple are trying to help societie's less fortunate, not profit from crime.

[Laffs]

Shit like this is why I sold my residential rentals when the market here started to heat up so I could save to get in a commercial unit. Never had an issue (mostly students) but the horror stories kept mounting and didn't want to end up a statistic.

[RedSN]

I think you guys are focused on the "difficulty of dealing with bad tenants" and missing the point of the story entirely. The City knew what was going on, even encouraged it, and then did a 180 and seized the properties because "the Reillys are not responsible landlords".

The Tenant Protection Act is a completely different debate.

[Laffs]

I think you guys are focused on the "difficulty of dealing with bad tenants" and missing the point of the story entirely. The City knew what was going on, even encouraged it, and then did a 180 and seized the properties because "the Reillys are not responsible landlords".

The Tenant Protection Act is a completely different debate.

I was because the title is "Check your tenants out"

[RedSN]

^^^I blame the OP for that.

I thought the thread was going to be about this guy

https://i0.wp.com/www.bayview-news.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/james-regan2-1.jpg?fit=640%2C640&resize=350%2C200

[92redragtop]

I think you guys are focused on the "difficulty of dealing with bad tenants" and missing the point of the story entirely. The City knew what was going on, even encouraged it, and then did a 180 and seized the properties because "the Reillys are not responsible landlords".

The Tenant Protection Act is a completely different debate.

What I got out of it was the government overstepping their bounds and trying to link the landlord to the crime directly so the properties could be seized and sold for government coffers. If they could stretch the boundaries of the Act that allows forfeiture of private property (not owned by those arrested) in this case then they can do it in other areas/cases. As DT would say "Very dangerous".

[Quicksilver]

We had a drug dealing / drug smoking tenant, called the police, called child welfare, called everyone else we could think of including tried to evict via the courts with zero help. Under this ridiculous system that protects "the rights" of bad tenants, WTF is a landlord suppose to do? In my case, after exhausting all of the above for over a year, took explaining things in a special way before tenants thought it best they moved along.
When I had my building I inherited a tenant who was a "ward of the province". They paid all his bills and managed his life. Unfortunately he was a hoarder/smoker/drug addict with a petty crime rap sheet a mile long. In the 5 years I owned the building he was jailed 3 time for 6 months at a time.
The fire marshal came along one day and ordered his apartment it be cleaned out ass it was full to the ceiling of junk. The province paid for this. a year later it happened again. And then 9 months after that. Each time the fire Marshall ordered this cleanout.
At first i thought, well, OK, the province pays for all this, but then it began impacting my other tenants, and making it difficult to get new ones, so we applied to have him evicted, on grounds of being a safety hazard. The province sent lawyers and fought me for 18 months through the rent tribunal, until finally a judge agreed with me and we got him out.
Then it cost me a full rehab on the apartment, including cupboards, paint, and appliances (which of course was at my own expense).
That apartment building cost me a LOT of money and as a landlord I had almost no rights.

[83 5.0]

Hmmm, how come the city of Toronto doesn't lose their TCHC housing units?