FRPO Issues Strong Reaction to Ontario Government's HST Measures
April 15, 2010
By Steven Chester
The Federation of Rental-Housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) has quickly and scathingly responded to the Ontario Government’s recently introduced measures stating that HST costs will not be transferable from landlords to tenants.
This week’s FRPO press release, titled McGuinty Government Dupes Media and Tenants on the HST, states that the Ontario Government provided deliberately misleading information designed to capture media attention and attack landlords rather than help them deal with the “huge negative consequences that are specific to the rental housing industry.”
The HST is expected to increase industry costs by about five per cent, the FRPO says, leading to a cost increase with inflation of about seven per cent next year. At the same time, the annual rent increase guideline is going to be about .5 per cent next year. Many other rental housing costs, such as property management, waste disposal, repairs and maintenance, legal, accounting, landscaping and snow removal will see full eight per cent cost increases when the HST takes effect on July 1, 2010.
“The government has done nothing to protect tenants from the HST,” says Vince Brescia, President and CEO of the FRPO. “In future years, tenants will see their rent increase by up to $1,000 a year while these costs get passed on.”
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