What you need to know about Cannabis Decriminalization
As most of you know, on October 17, 2018, the smoking and growing of Cannabis will be “decriminalized” meaning it will now be legal to smoke and consume. Regardless of your opinions of whether or not it should be legal or not, as home owners and landlords, we need to prepare for this change in the marketplace. We as landlords need to accommodate our tenants of their new legal rights, but we must also respect other tenants in the building and the building / investment itself.
Here are some things that Michael and I are doing for our tenants to ensure that we and other tenants are protected.
1. I had the opportunity to attend a session recently with a real estate lawyer on the Cannabis Act- what you should know. Here are some key things that I learned.
2. Here is the “Reminder of NON-SMOKING POLICY in all rental units” letter that we have sent to all of our tenants. Feel free to use this document (or something similar) for your tenants. We are not promising that it will hold up in a tribunal, however, it does set the tone with the tenants.
3. These are some clauses we will be adding to our leases going forward. Having the clauses in the lease and signed by the tenant gives you a much better chance at enforcing it later. Landlords have been successful in evicting tenants who signed that won’t smoke in a unit and then went ahead anyway in multi-unit buildings. (2 or more).
4. The Real Estate Lawyers put together a 7 page report titled “Cannabis Act. What realtors should know”. This makes for a good read.
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