Tenants and Landlords for Fair Taxation (TLFT) Ottawa

Tenants and Landlords for Fair Taxation

Stop Paying Unfair Taxes

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(Updated April 24, 2009)

On April 22, 2009, Ottawa City Council voted to cancel the 2009 tax-driven rent increases for most tenants. City Council did that by reducing the average tax increase on tenant occupied property from 5.7% to 2.5%.

Since landlords would have passed the higher tax through to tenants in our rents, that would have led to rent increases above the guideline. City Council cancelled those rent increases, by reducing the tenants tax increase.

(Landlords can still raise rents by the guideline or by applying to the Landlord and Tenant Board for other major cost increases, but taxes will not lead to a rent increase for most tenants. We say “for most tenants” because a few rental properties may have had an assessment increase that was big enough to result in a large tax increase even though the overall increase in the tax rate has been reduced.)

The following City Councillors voted for this year’s step toward tax fairness for tenants:

Cullen, Legendre, Holmes, Doucet, Chiarelli, Hunter, Leadman, Qadri, Wilkinson, Bellemare, Hume, Deans, McRae, Feltmate and Bloess.

For the full details of the two votes on the issue, showing the Councillors who voted against tax fairness for tenants, and the Councillors who voted for an actual tax decrease for tenants, go to "Past Voting" at the top.

Thank you to everyone who emailed or telephoned Councillors. Without those contacts most Ottawa tenants would have faced above-guideline rent increases for taxes. Thanks to tenants’ telephone calls and e-mails, most tenants will NOT face above-guideline rent increases for taxes.

Please contact TLFT to see what you can do to help us improve the situation for tenants next year. Our phone number is 613 276-6307. Our e-mail address is webmaster@TLFT.org. Or go to "Volunteering" at the top to find out more about volunteering to help.

History

Tenants and Landlords for Fair Taxation (TLFT) is a group of tenants and landlords working together to bring multi-residential property taxes in line with taxes paid by homeowners in the City of Ottawa.

As a tenant, you pay property taxes through your rent. About 14% to 18% of your rent goes to pay property taxes, when it should be only about 10%. This means you are paying $35 to $70 each month more in rent than is fair. Your landlord has to collect that extra rent and send it to the City of Ottawa in property taxes.

In 2006, City Council reduced the multi-residential tax ratio from 2.152 to 1.8. As a result, many tenants avoided rent increases due to tax increases, and more than 5,000 tenants saw rent reductions due to tax decreases.

In 2009, City staff proposed to increase tenants’ taxes by 5.7%. Because that increase will be substantially above the rent increase guideline of 1.8%, such an increase would have allowed landlords to apply for above guideline rent increases to pass through the increased municipal taxes. By speaking out, tenants and landlords succeeded in convincing Council to avoid any 2009 tax increase that would result in a tax-driven above-guideline rent increase.