Today: $267M Unpaid Rent

Credit bureau, rental history, rental debt

Author

CEO Weiting Bollu
March 09, 2025

Good morning / 早上好 / Bonjour / ਸ਼ੁਭ ਸਵੇਰ / Buen día friend!

This is the newsletter where I take you behind-the-scenes as we build Openroom.ca with you, our community.

At Openroom, we aggregate tenancy court orders across Canada, extract information from them, and put it to public use (e.g. search registry, impact credit history). We also educate with events and training.

Thank you for joining us in building towards a transparent and connected rental ecosystem.

👩🏻 Top insight from me, Weiting (Co-Founder), about Rental Histories

You may know that I am on a mission to fill the loop holes of some serious lack of accountability when someone doesn’t pay the lawful rent owing.

$267M of Unpaid Rent from a fraction of Ontario’s Tribunal Decisions between 2021-2025. Data aggregated as of Sat. March 8, 2025, counted daily within the Openroom.ca Dashboard when you are logged in.

As I unravel this bizarre realization throughout the next few years with my team, I promise to continue sharing what we learn with you.

Being well informed means you - whether you are a renter or housing provider - can make better decisions.

Grab a sip of your coffee, water, or juice. Let’s dive in.

Credit Bureaus - Did you know?

  • Equifax and TransUnion are Canada’s main credit bureaus [Source: Canada.ca]. They have credit histories made up from lenders or other sources that have information about us as consumers. They are not made equal, and can show different scores and/or histories depending on which one you use.

As you read on, this is what I mean when I refer to:

Rental Payment History = data about each month’s payment in a tenancy agreement. On-time or late.

Rental Debt = data when someone (Debtor) owes rental debt to someone else (the Creditor). Right now, tenants owing the landlord/housing provider.

Rental Data = contains both of the above.

  • Equifax takes rental data from Consumer Reporting Agencies and shows it on the consumer’s credit history as either a Tradeline record (for rental payment history) or Collections record (for example Openroom’s rental debt ledger).

  • TransUnion is still in the early stages of understanding how rental data will impact credit scores and credit history. It’s coming…🙏

  • Rentcheck Credit Bureau is operated by RentCheck, a private org. No rental data is shared with other credit bureaus. It is used internally by housing providers who use the RentCheck tenant screening product(s) - exclusively. Tenants do not get to access their rental history within RentCheck. That’s too bad. 😔

  • Landlord Credit Bureau is operated by FrontLobby, also a private org. It exists in FrontLobby’s own tenant screening product(s) today. Pretty catchy bureau name. 👋

  • What about Collections Agencies? Not a credit bureau but they play a crucial role in the rental ecosystem when it comes to unpaid rent. Ah, let’s talk about this another time. 🧐 

Top 2 scary and confusing things that made me question the credit system

  1. Some companies that report into Equifax are ‘Tenant-Driven’. This means, a Tenant signs up for a subscription and pays a fee each month to report their rental history to Equifax. I’m all in for great tenants.

    The thing is, ‘Tenant-Drive’ type of rental history can be gamed. For example, a monthly subscription can be cancelled whenever someone chooses not to pay rent. 🤦🏻‍♀️

  2. Some companies have been able to send rental debt data into credit bureaus without verifying identities of the Creditor/Filer or verifying the amounts truly owing by the Debtor. That’s scary. 🥴 

The key take aways

  1. If you’re a housing provider reviewing or pulling a consumer report, know the differences. Watch out for which specific company’s data is in the consumer reports and whether that data can be a trusted source.

  2. If you’re a resident, understand why a housing provider will ask for either/or when you apply for a rental. And, why they are requesting that you agree to share your rental history with credit bureaus.

My friend, this is just part 1. There is so much more I need to tell you!

📊 Community Polling

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I love hearing from you so if you’ve got feedback or questions for me, reply back! I read every single email and try to reply to as many as I can.

CEO Weiting Bollu's Headshot image

Weiting Bollu
Mom, Rental Housing Provider, Rental Housing Advocate, Educator, and Openroom Co-Founder & CEO

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