After major issues with tenants, these Ontario landlords blame their real estate agents

Sanaulhaq Zarawar has a tenant who won't pay rent and won't move out. 

It's the kind of stressful situation he says he wanted to avoid when he hired a real estate agent to find him a "good" tenant for his only rental property, a four-bedroom house in Whitby, Ont., shared with multiple family members as an investment.

"Why else would I have paid a Realtor than to make sure I have a good tenant and to do the vetting and background checks?" he said. 

The tenant moved into the home in 2023. Several months in, Zarawar says, he stopped paying. Panicked, Zarawar took a closer look at the application and began calling the references himself. 

That's when he says he realized he may be dealing with a fraudulent tenant. The tenant, who was also represented by his own agent, appeared to have applied with false documentation, listing employers who never answered calls and falsely claiming a second applicant who would be contributing to rent.

It turns out vetting was not included in the contract with his real estate agent, he says.

"He promised me he was going to do the background checks,'" Zarawar said of the agent he hired. "I trusted two Realtors and that was a big mistake."

He says the tenant now owes him nearly $40,000 in rent and unpaid utilities.

In many big cities across Canada, many small landlords hire real estate agents, believing they will help them find good tenants for their rental properties. But the agents do not actually guarantee vetting in standard contracts, and are under no obligation to do so — despite what they may verbally promise.

"If [landlords] want vetting and background checks to be something their Realtor is legally required to do, then they need to request for that to be added in," Toronto paralegal Bita Di Lisi said. "Verbal promises are not legally binding."

Both real estate agents and Zarawar's tenant declined to comment to CBC News. 

In Ontario, landlords can direct complaints about a real estate agent to the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO). Since CBC first reached out last December, RECO has said "there may be confusion relating to the standard forms" between agents and landlords, and it says it has started communicating with agents more on the issue this year. 

The stakes are high for landlords — despite starting to fall, rents remain high, and so do mortgage rates, making it costly if things go sideways.

Meanwhile, overwhelmed landlord-tenant boards across the country are facing long delays. In all, landlords say it's nearly impossible to evict a problematic tenant before their rent arrears start piling up. Zarawar says he's had two hearings on this issue at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, with long delays in between and still no resolution. Only the LTB can issue an eviction order.