Furnace died in my rental unit, landlord wants me to cover the repair bill

My tenant in a triplex in Hamilton called me last Tuesday night saying the heat was out. I went over, checked the furnace, and it turns out the blower motor seized up. The unit is 14 years old, so this was coming, but the landlord association told me tenant pays for repairs under the Ontario standard lease since it's a 'maintenance item'. That sounded wrong to me. I looked up the Residential Tenancies Act and it clearly says structural and major systems are the landlord's responsibility. The blower motor is part of the heating system, so I paid the $580 for a new one out of pocket. My tenant was decent about it, but now I'm wondering if I should have pushed back harder on the association or if I'm stuck with this bill. Has anyone else dealt with a landlord association giving wrong info about repair costs in Ontario? How did you handle it without burning a bridge?

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fiona73724d ago

You said you were told it was a "maintenance item," and honestly I used to buy that line from my own landlord association too... but after digging into the RTA myself, yeah, you're right, heating systems are on the owner, no question. The association gives out bad info all the time because they're trying to keep costs down for landlords, not because they're reading the law straight. I think you did the smart thing paying it and keeping the peace, because fighting it would've cost you more in time and hassle than that $580 anyway.