CRB program can help identify which apartment building to choose

Q: I will be moving to Ottawa in November to take a new job. I have begun my search for an apartment in Ottawa but I find the number of potential units overwhelming. Where should I be looking to rent? How can I tell if a building is a good place to live?

A: First, you probably want to choose what area you want to rent in based on your job location and what kind of area you want to live in, whether on the future LRT line, downtown, or whatever your taste is.

To find possible rentals in the area(s) you choose, you can talk to friends who are familiar with Ottawa, plan a trip to the city so you can see different areas, look at classified ads in the Ottawa Citizen or use the Internet. The Ottawa Citizen apartment ads are available at classifieds.ottawacitizen.com/ottawa/rentals/search. One frequently used apartment listing service is rentseeker.ca.

From the company histories on their websites you can tell whether the companies have a long history in Ottawa, which usually means they have kept their customers satisfied for that time period. You can also see how large the companies are. Some tenants prefer to rent from larger companies because they tend to have internal systems, and can cover for illnesses or other staff emergencies.

Once you have identified buildings in the area in which you are interested, you will probably want to visit them. That way, you can see the apartment layouts firsthand, and find out whether you like the “feel” of the building.

Another way to check for attention to proper operating standards is to find out whether the building is a Certified Rental Building. The CRB program came to Ottawa in 2009, having initially launched in Toronto in 2008. There are now more than 15,000 rental suites certified under the CRB program across Ottawa.

To be certified under the CRB program a property manager must comply with 36 standards which reflect how a good building should be run and how quality service is provided. The standards cover compliance with all provincial health and safety standards, regular cleaning, preventive maintenance, a system for tenants to request repairs, a system for rent collection which is consistently applied and many other procedures that reflect good quality building operations and service standards for tenants.

In addition, the property manager must send their building staff on a specific training course, and must have a third-party audit to ensure that they are in fact complying with the 36 building standards.

If you rent an apartment in a Certified Rental Building you are assured that the building will be clean, well run and kept in good repair, and that the property manager will deal with you professionally and courteously. You can learn more about the CRB program at www.crbprogram.org. The website allows a person to search for buildings in the CRB program.

In Ottawa, tenants are fortunate to have a wide choice of rental buildings, run by many property managers who operate their buildings at a high standard, both members and non-members of the CRB program.