DATABASE HELPS TRACK BAD TENANTS

A retired Surrey RCMP fraud investigator has a service he says will help
city landlords avoid running afoul of a new bylaw making them responsible
for the cost of taking down drug houses in rented homes.

Marv Steier operates TVS Tenant Verification Service, an online database of
delinquent renters, at www.tenantverification.com. Steier was a Mountie for
20 years and headed up Surrey detachment's fraud section for a time. He
also worked as a fraud investigator for ICBC.

Steier said unscrupulous tenants use landlords as "a revolving line of
credit" by moving from place to place and leaving rental fees unpaid, a
practice made easy by the lack of communication between property owners.

"Until now, landlords haven't been networked and were not reporting problem
tenants," Steier said.

"We're a credit reporting agency registered under the Credit Reporting Act
of B.C. We only report willful damage and unpaid rental fees."

Landlords can sign up and report bad tenants free of charge. When the time
comes to rent a home, the owner can pay $16.95 to TVS and search the
database to see if the prospective tenant has a poor history.

That, Steier said, can help weed out renters who could land the owner in
hot water with the City of Surrey.

Council passed a bylaw last month that allows the city to charge back the
cost of police, fire and other agencies involved in taking down marijuana
grow operations, crack houses, methamphetamine labs and the like. The bylaw
also provides for fines of up to $5,000 for landlords whose premises are
used for criminal drug activity.

"If a landlord has a grow-op and it costs him $6,000 or $7,000 to fix, he
can report that. That's willful damage and it will show up the next time
they apply to rent," Steier said.

"Then the next landlord can decide if this is a tenant he wants, or not."