CAMBRIDGE, Ont. — Landlords posting tenant reviews on so-called blacklist websites is a trend some in the industry worry could add to the housing crisis.
Websites like Tenantscore, Openroom and other similar blacklisting sites allow landlords and tenants to air their grievances, potentially preventing tenants from finding housing in the future.
A legal expert said that even if tenants have had negative relationships with landlords in the past, it shouldn’t hinder their ability to find a place to call home.
The danger with these sites is your information will be out there and anyone can see it. It can put you in a very vulnerable position, said Cynthia Iheanacho, a lawyer and renter advocate at Waterloo Region Community Legal Services (WRCLS).
I tell all my clients not to add any information in these and just be careful if you see your name on a site, said Iheanacho. If there are any issues, it should be handled through the tenant board. You never know how this could be used against you.
Some landlords renting in Cambridge are afraid they will rent to the wrong person and lose money if the tenant runs into financial difficulty and decides not to pay.
Credit score is the most important thing because we need to pay our mortgage and we can’t have people who have a bad history of making payments, said property owner and realtor Kamal Khanna.
Before, if you needed to get rent payments from a tenant, the Landlord Tenant Board (LTB) would take forever to schedule a meeting, he said.
As a realtor, Khanna works with other property owners and tells them all the same thing; they need to make sure that whoever they are bringing in is able to cover their rent.
Tenant rating websites are being touted as a useful tool to assist landlords in finding the right candidates to rent their units, but he agrees if someone withheld rent in the past it could hurt them in the future.
