Condemning poor tenants to condemned buildings

"Avoid problems with your tenants!" reads the warning-filled flyer for Gestion Vigilantia, a Napierville firm that checks the credit and solvability of a person of your choice for a $22 fee. "Vigilant landlords obtain a credit report prior to signing a lease with a new tenant." The flyer, faxed primarily to landlords, includes drawings of a man running away from an apartment building with a sack of money, and a cheque embossed with the letters "NSF." >> The Mirror carried out an investigation to discover just how much a shaky financial past can influence a rental decision. Supplying Vigilantia with the name of a relatively insolvent person who declared bankruptcy in 1991, we claimed we were a landlord debating whether or not to rent him an apartment. The response from Vigilantia came the next day: although the company hadn't discovered the bankruptcy, it did find that this person had a balance of $3 in his bank account. When the Mirror asked if our subject--who has never skipped out on a lease--would be a good tenant, the the Vigilantia rep replied, "Listen, with figures like those he's not going to be able to pay his rent every month." >> If this information was in writing and the subject had been refused an apartment, says Jean-Marie Lafortune of the Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires, the subject could take both Gestion Vigilantia and the landlord to court for discrimination. Such credit checks by landlords are becoming more and more common, he says. As a result, people with a less-than-stellar financial history tend to be relegated to inferior apartments that landlords are desperate to rent. >> Many landlords use forms asking potential tenants to provide such information as bank account numbers, social insurance numbers and sometimes even racial origins. In some cases they are asked to provide the name of a person to contact in case of an emergency. Lafortune warns this is not a sign of landlord compassion: "The landlords ask for that information so they can harass your mother if you leave without paying your rent." --Jacquie Charlton