Commercial landlords want federal rent aid program fixed
B.C. groups complain process too complicated
VICTORIA — B.C. commercial landlords and small businesses want Ottawa to fix problems in the federal rent assistance program that they say are delaying aid for owners and tenants.
The government should reduce the amount of lost revenue required for businesses to qualify, let landlords make individual aid applications at a single address and clarify who is liable if financial documents from tenants end up inaccurate, argues the Building Owners and Managers Association of B.C.
The group, which represents most large commercial building owners in Metro Vancouver and Victoria, said these flaws in the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance (CECRA) program have meant some landlords have delayed applying (or have even chosen not to apply at all) on behalf of tenants during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“It’s an incredibly complicated process for each application,” said Warren Smithies, association vice-chair and CEO of Martello Group, a Vancouver-based commercial property management company with 500 tenants in almost 200 buildings in B.C. and Alberta. “The amount of work that’s involved is tremendous.”
Many small businesses agree with the complaints identified by landlords.
“CECRA is an administrative nightmare,” said Laura Jones, vice-president of the Canadian Federation of Independent Business.
Landlords are often not to blame for the problems tenants have accessing federal rent assistance, she said. And Ottawa’s inability to help sort out simple questions facing both tenant and landlord has made the situation worse, added Jones.
The commercial rent assistance program gives landlords a 50-per cent non-repayable grant if they reduce rent to a tenant by 75 per cent. The tenant then pays 25 per cent of rent to the landlord.
Applications opened last week. Only landlords can apply, not tenants.
B.C. Finance Minister Carole James this week banned building owners from evicting tenants if they don’t apply to the federal program first, accusing some of them of being slow to seek federal aid for tenants.
The landlord association said the minister has assumed malice from landlords when they’re instead struggling with confusion over application packages that can amount to hundreds of pages.
One major complaint is landlords can only apply once per commercial address, said Smithies.
That’s a challenge for buildings with numerous tenants, such as office complexes, malls or commercial towers in downtown Vancouver. The owner first has to canvass each tenant’s availability, gather all the paperwork and prepare one large bulk package, said Smithies.
Ottawa will not consider a second application at an address, said the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, which administers the program.
“To effectively manage the high volume of applications received, the expectation is the property owner makes best efforts to include all eligible impacted tenants within their submitted application,” CMHC said in a statement.
It will only allow changes to an existing application “in exceptional circumstances.”
“There are no plans to change this process of accepting and processing applications for CECRA,” read the statement.
Only businesses that have lost 70 per cent of their revenue due to COVID-19 are eligible for rent aid.
“That’s probably the biggest barrier to application at this point,” said Smithies.
Many businesses suffering smaller declines also can’t afford their rent but are excluded from aid, said Jones.
Both landlords and small businesses want Ottawa to lower the threshold to 30 per cent, which is the amount required for federal wage assistance.
Landlords are also worried a tenant could lie about finances to get the federal money, leaving the building owner facing reprisal from Ottawa for unknowingly filing an application with false information on the tenant’s behalf.
CHMC said that’s not the intent. “Both parties are only liable for the integrity of their own financial information submitted,” the agency said in a statement.
Landlords and small businesses say they’d prefer a simpler program.