Cities like Vancouver and Victoria aren鈥檛 the only ones suffering from snoopy landlords.
A month ago, my boyfriend and I got a taste of 琉璃神社鈥檚 low vacancy rate as we searched for an apartment, competing, according to ad views, against hundreds of other potential renters.
The biggest shock wasn鈥檛 the competition however, it was the feeling of being exposed.
A landlord who owned an apartment in the Lower Mission requested to see our social insurance numbers and annual salary.
Coming from smaller communities where the stakes weren鈥檛 so high, we left more than a few blanks in our application as we refused to fill out optional requests for SIN numbers and 鈥渞equired鈥� questions of income.
A few weeks later, our application was deemed 鈥渋ncomplete.鈥�
According to Andrew Sakamoto, executive director for the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre, landlords shouldn鈥檛 be asking for SIN numbers, banking information, credit cards, criminal records, or taking copies of driver鈥檚 licenses.
鈥淎 landlord is allowed to feel confident that a tenant will be able to pay their rent. They鈥檙e allowed to ask permission to run a credit report,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he fact that landlords are asking for all of this personal information and tenants are providing it, is sort of a symptom of this rental housing crisis that鈥檚 plaguing our society.鈥�
Sakamoto also has a first-hand experience of dealing with the issue. He said he provided his SIN number to to a landlord in order to secure the tenancy.
鈥淚 know a lot of other tenants in the same boat,鈥� he said. 鈥淲ith vacancy rates so low and competition so high, there鈥檚 a lot of desperation for housing.鈥�
According to acting deputy commissioner Bradley Weldon at the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, landlords can only request 鈥渘ecessary鈥� information from a tenant.
鈥淭here is no reason for a landlord to request more information with a reputable reference,鈥� said Weldon. More information should only be requested if a reference isn鈥檛 available and should be only required to determine if the individual is capable of paying the rent, he said.
鈥淭he amount of information you collect, should escalate as you have reason to escalate it. But what we鈥檙e seeing instead is one size fits all application forms that treat an individual who has a 10-year positive reference from a landlord鈥he same as someone who has no background whatsoever and there鈥檚 reason to believe they might not be able to make their rent payments,鈥� he said.
The privacy commissioner is currently investigating both private and commercial landlords which was announced after the large number of inquiries it received about tenant privacy rights. The investigation should wrap up in about three to four months, said Weldon.
To access information on tenant and landlord rights visit www.oipc.bc.ca.
carli.berry@kelownacapnews.com
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