suite to have laminate or hardwood flooring. If this type of flooring is already in the upper suite and cannot be replaced, then make extensive use of area rugs at the very least. Consider requiring the upper suite tenant to use area rugs as a term of the rental agreement, but recognize that you may be expected to subsidize some or all of the cost.
Sometimes only a door serves as separation between the primary living area and the secondary suite. Interior doors are ineffective at reducing sound transfer. If you replace the door with an insulated wall, you might contravene fire safety bylaws in your area. Consider replacing the door with an exterior grade, solid-core door instead.
Include noise reduction practices in your rental agreement. For instance, the rental agreement should have a clause restricting the operation of stereo equipment and major appliances such as the washer, dryer, and dishwasher to daylight hours only.
Keep in mind that if you want such clauses to be effective, the tenant will expect you to adhere to the same rules. Owning a secondary suite means a restriction on the freedoms you normally enjoy as a homeowner — this is part of the price that secondary suite owners pay for the benefit of the extra rental income.
Another transfer issue relates to cooking odours. Ensure that your tenants have access to a high quality range hood and insist they use it while cooking. Also, if only a door serves as separation between the tenant’s suite and your own, then apply weather stripping to the door to make it as airtight as possible.
Even if these measures are implemented, the soundproofing between one living area and the other will never be up to the standard found in a multi-family building. If you want to earn extra income from secondary suites, be prepared to tolerate occasional noise from the tenant’s home theater equipment or noise from people coming and going late at night.
Many enterprising Canadians consider using the rental income produced by a secondary suite to subsidize the cost of the Canadian dream of home ownership. After a tenant moves in, every new noise or every new cooking odour is perceived as an assault on the quiet enjoyment of the home. Secondary suite owners must have realistic expectations. Landlords who own legal duplexes shouldn’t hear neighbours, or smell their cooking. But landlords who own single family homes that have been duplexed after the fact should learn to live and let live, or else find a different way to live the Canadian dream.
Sharing Laundry
If you must share laundry facilities with your tenant, are there certain days of the week that you want the machines reserved for yourself? This must be outlined in the rental agreement. Don’t restrict your tenant’s use of laundry facilities too much. Try for a schedule with some flexibility.
Ambiguous Boundaries Between Exclusive-Use and Common Areas
Tenants renting a secondary suite might be uncertain as to whether or not they’re entitled to exclusive use of any part of the yard. In a home with upper and lower suites, the tenant in the lower suite might assume that the backyard is for his or her own use, while the upper occupants may only use the balcony. Sometimes, tenants may consider the backyard to be their own personal storage area, or a place where they can leave debris. Yard disputes are foreseeable. They’re also preventable if your rental agreement is clear about the use of the yard and all common areas.
Physical barriers such as fences or hedges could be installed to create exclusive-use areas. If it is impractical to install physical barriers, then boundaries must be created through terms in the rental agreement. For example, you could have a clause in the agreement specifying that while the interior of the secondary suite is for the tenant’s exclusive use, all other parts of the property are considered common-use areas. Your agreement would prohibit the tenant from leaving items on common property without the landlord’s permission.
Parking problems are also foreseeable and preventable. Do you want your tenant to park on a certain part of the driveway and not elsewhere? Do you want to restrict the number of vehicles that the tenant may park on the property? Decide what you want ahead of time and clearly specify the parking rules in the rental agreement.
If they’re located within the secondary suite, know that you cannot access the electrical panel, hot water tank or furnace without receiving the tenant’s consent to enter the home, or by serving written notice beforehand as required by provincial tenancy law. You could enter the suite if it’s an emergency, but the law has a narrow definition of “emergency.” Generally, it’s only an emergency if property or people are at immediate risk of harm. You and your tenants should agree beforehand to a contingency plan about what should happen in the event that a circuit breaker needs to be reset, for instance.
Property Maintenance and Secondary Suites
If two families live in a home, whose responsibility is it to mow the lawn, clean the gutters, and otherwise keep the home well maintained? If you live on the property with your tenant, minimize the chance of conflict by making all of that your responsibility.
But what if you don’t live on the property? What if you own an investment property that is rented to two or more families, several of whom live in secondary suites? This is where it gets complicated. None of the tenants have unrestricted exclusive access to the property and you cannot say that one tenant is responsible for property maintenance and the others are not unless it is agreed to in the rental agreement. (Most tenants won’t agree to mow the lawn for free.)
You could delegate these responsibilities to one of the tenants in return for a rent reduction. Have the tenant pay you the full rent each month, but give the tenant a cheque each month after he or she successfully attends to the duties. However, this could get messy. What if the lawn is mowed too infrequently? Resentment and animosity will build if you withhold payment. What if the tenant is injured while working on your property? Is the tenant legally considered your employee? Are you insured for such a liability?
The best advice I can give you is to contract these jobs out to others — hire someone other than your tenant to mow the lawn, clean the gutters, etc. Consider it a cost of doing business, one that is tax deductible.
Payment of Utilities
Secondary suites typically share electric or gas meters. Landlords usually expect secondary suite tenants to pay a percentage of the total monthly utility bill. Though reasonable in theory, this procedure has some foreseeable drawbacks.
The tenant might dispute the percentage of the bill assigned and complain about perceived excessive usage by his or her neighbour.
You might want your secondary suite tenant to pay 50 percent of the utilities, but some prospective tenants might try to negotiate a lower amount. They might say that they don’t plan to use utilities extensively and that it is unfair to be charged 50 percent of the bill. You could remain firm, but the prospective tenants might decide to look elsewhere for a rental. Or, they might accept the arrangement, complain frequently, and otherwise take up your time and energy every time they receive the utility bill. Or they might move out soon afterwards, leaving you with a premature vacancy.
The tenant might periodically fail to remit payment in a timely manner, thereby doubling your bill-collecting responsibilities.
If you have a utility split arrangement with your tenant, in addition to collecting the rent every month, you will have to send your tenant the utility bill. The laws in many provinces are not as strict for collecting utilities as they are for collecting rent. Your tenant might be allowed to take 30 days or
