@apples45 said:The EC wants to communicate with tenants and tell them of “duties” that they should be participating in – like rubbish removal etc.
I don’t agree with EC members/strata manager communicating with tenants. It should be left to the strata manager/EC to communicate with the real estate agents/owners. The EC and strata manager are not managing the tenants. It is the owners responsibility to inform them of by-laws and duties.
Tenants are subject to the same by-laws and properly constituted rules as any other resident. The Executive Committee and/or strata manager, as representatives of all the owners, are perfectly entitled to inform them when they have breached them.
If it’s just a building’s unwritten rules, like taking turns to put out the garbage, and they aren’t covered by their lease or in by-laws, then they are entitled to ignore the requests. But if there is a problem, do you really want their rental agent and landlord to get phone calls and letters from the Executive Committee and Strata Managers telling them that they are bad neighbours?
Trust me, even if the landlord starts off sympathetic to the tenants, in a city where rental occupancy is below 0.5 percent, the easiest way to make the phone calls and letters stop is to ask the tenants to leave.
If they feel they are being unfairly treated r harrassed by their neighbours, the tenants can certainly ask the landlord to tell the EC members to back off. And the tenants can get good advice on their rights (and responsibilities) at the Tenants Union website.
But it’s standard practice in most buildings for the Executive Committee or strata manager to tell tenants directly if there’s a problem. They will then take it up with the landlords if their complaints are ignored.
When they get a Notice To Comply, a warning which can lead to a fine if they don’t pay heed, it comes from the Executive Committee or Strata Manager, not the landlord.
Ignore one of those and the next communication they might get from their landlord may be the one informing them that they have breached the terms of their lease by breaking by-laws, and telling them that they have to leave.
There’s a fine line between informing tenants of their responsibilities and harrassing them or bullying them. But surely a gentle reminder from someone in the building is better than a letter of complaint to the landlord or agent. I’d personally prefer a quick chat with a neighbour to a letter of complaint being sent to my landlord.