I rent out my basement and my tenant had a man move in with her. He was recently in jail and I don’t feel safe with him in my home. She is loud and causes disturbances. I also want to increase the rent and have my brother move in. Can I?

The only thing you may be able to do at this point is increase the rent but this depends on how long the tenant has been living there because you can only increase the rent once every twelve months. In order to increase the rent you would have to give her 90 days notice using a prescribed form which is a Form N1, and increase it by the guideline amount for this year. As for asking her to leave, the N12 can only be served if the unit is required for the landlord, the landlord’s spouse, a child, or parent of the landlord. A brother or sister would not be considered immediate family in this case. With regards to the other issues, you may not have sufficient grounds yet to issue a Form N7, which is the notice given based on the reason that the tenant is interfering with the landlord’s reasonable enjoyment of the premises(if you live in the same building that has 3 or fewer residential units). In this situation, you have to be able to prove what is going on and how it’s affecting you or other people in the house. We suggest keeping a log to document any incidents that may be considered interference with reasonable enjoyment, for example, excessive noise or aggressive or abusive behavior by the tenant or her guests. This is important to have in case you do have to serve the N7 notice , as this notice requires you to provide a very detailed account of what is happening, including dates and times of each incident.

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