How to evict a renter with no contract.
 

Hey one of my friends rented out there basement to someone that smokes he wasn't supposed to smoke inside the house but he is. There is no contract or anything how would you go about evicting him.

They have told him to stop smoking inside and he said okay but continued to do it.

Afterwards they offered him his rent back and for him to find a new place and he agree'd but doesn't look like hes going to leave anytime soon

Is this a legal suite/rental?

Put all his shit in garbage bags, stick it out on the lawn, and change the locks.

Yep, with no contract he is just an unwanted guest.

Not true. Although a landlord/tenancy agreement must be a written contract, the fact that the landlord went ahead and rented out a suite to a tenant, albeit illegally, can still come back to bite him in the ass.

http://www.rto.gov.bc.ca/documents/GL20.pdf

Here is my concern. Contract may be implied from conduct/actions of the parties, i. e. implied contract. For a valid contract, all you need is:

1) Intention (to form a contract between two parties),
2) Consideration from both sides (advancement of money for instance), and usually but not always, each party has to experience some sort of...
3) Detriment/benefit

There was an implied intention between your friend and the tenant. The tenant has paid rent hence consideration was advanced by him to your friend, similarly your friend has advanced his basement as consideration from his side. Your friend has suffered a detriment by renting out his place, but incurred a benefit by accepting rent moneys; the tenant has incurred a detriment by parting with his money, but similarly received a benefit in a sense that he got a place to live in...

Throwing out the tenant's stuff and locking him out will for sure lead to litigation...

Yup! In another words, I hope your friend has a good lawyer. A lot of "landlords" think they have the upper hand by accepting cash, and entering into a "verbal" agreement, but the Residential Tenancy Act protects the tenant. period. The best thing for your friend to do is contact the RT branch and look at what his options are. In the end he could get in trouble for entering into an illegal contract.

its a legal suite

hmm i'll try calling them and see what they say

I am not talking about the suite, when I said illegal. The fact that your friend is renting out his space to a tenant, without any type of written contract/agreement makes what he is doing, illegal.

If yoru friend told the renter he needs to move in the beginning of the month (beginning of Feb) then the renter only have a few days left.

If he doens't move put an fire alarm in the besement suite and lock it up so if he smokes it will keep going off. Don't disable it. That will force him to move.

That sounds like a good idea

so the fact that his friend "verbally" told him he had to leave, makes it legit? You may want to think about that. You guys need look at the RT Act, and its respective website informing both landlords and tenants of their own rights.

^^ But the alarm would probably be so loud it would annoy your friend too. :pokerface:

when the guy is out, change the locks, take all his shit, dump it at nearest salvation army.

You never seen this guy before in your life

How is a verbal agreement not legal? It may be stupid, but in general, stupidity is not a crime.

Better yet, have the smoke detector set off a sprinkler. POINT MADE.

+1 on the fire alarm idea. hardwire it so he can't disable it. In fact, put one on the bedroom one in the living room and in the washroom and sync them so they go on at the same :)

Cigarette smoke will not set off a fire alarm, generally.

Even in a small room, he would need to chain smoke for hours.

I should rephrase. Verbal agreements aren't illegal, but you will have a fun time proving one was made.

True.

Then again, so will the renter. OP could claim the guy's been squatting.

This is devolving into bad information.

Getting rid of a shitty tenant is not a new problem. No you can't play games, dump their shit on the lawn or any of the other multitude of suggestions here. It does NOT matter if you have a lease or not when it comes to the POV of the tenant as there is a standard defacto lease in place by nature of trading living quarters for cash.

So when I yell and scream and swear on here, "use a lease" and "make an addendum with reasonable policies and financial considerations"...I'm not wasting my breath. You are going to have a lease anyway...shouldn't it be yours?

What do you want on your addendum? Is having it rented for a year important to you? Then you want a financial consideration if they want to move early.

Is smoking inside important to you? Then you want it documented that smoking is outside, and this is what will occur if you smoke inside.

And then when you go to deal with the bureaucrats at the branch who we've decided to give power to in these scenarios..you aren't picking your ass when they ask to see your paperwork. :)

That said(for the 15th time LOL): Your situation.

Getting rid of a shitty tenant.

Document everything. If you are going to have a verbal conversation, have a written letter that describes the talking points, signed and dated that you leave a copy of, and keep a copy of.

Make notes of verbal conversations if they catch you off guard.

You need to show that: there is a quantifiable problem. That problem needs to be reasonable. You tried to solve said problem. Problem not solved, and the only way to end it now is they move out.

You need to remember that: These people hear from every idiot tenant and landlord in the city and are not going to accept whatever bullshit you create and say, "gee, ok...that guy has to move."

On smoking: Good luck. You can make a health and safety issue(ie. smoke is permeating others living quarters..asthma...cancer....smell blah blah blah) You can make a damage issue(ie. The walls are stained, and drapes are fucked) Unfortunately, you won't succeed with "they WILL be damaged" the damage has to occur. Not much, but its what you can prove, not what you know.

And you prepare it all, file at the branch and enter the big ole crapshoot that is: getting the branch to agree to terminate for a reason other than money. It's the spaghetti approach...throw it against the wall.

In the meantime, you make life difficult. Raise rent if you can, say no to unusual requests...DO NOT BE A DICK ABOUT THIS, remember, you need to look pretty for the "judge". If they are loud, ask them to quiet down and so on.

I usually use this form http://www.rto.gov.bc.ca/documents/RTB-1.pdf and add whatever i need to on the back and get them to sign the back of the paper too if I need to add anything

but this isn't my basement that is rented

thanks everyone for the help

true. good ol civil litigations!

if you do this, they will sue your assssssssss and you're so going to get ass raped. I have heard someone do this during the winter and the penalities were bad.

^ you get someone else to move in the next day and sign a lease thats backdated 6 months

Guy can't pay rent, you think he has money for a lawyer?