I am sure that you are already aware of the issue however, it is important that as a tax paying citizen and resident of Ontario I express my grave concern and dissatisfaction of the current state of the Landlord and Tenant Board.
Prior to COVID 19 – the Landlords and Tenant Board (LTB) strived to meet a service standard of scheduling applications to be heard for Non payment of rent, and serious matters within 25 business days and other matters within 30 business days.
Since the beginning of COVID-19 the service standard has been completely disregarded and the timelines to even have hearing scheduled has increased over 7 times this standard (according to their website – it is now taking 7-8 months to SCHEDULE a hearing or adjournment) . Even if you are lucky to get a hearing date 8 to 9 months after the application was filed, there is a very slim chance that your matter will be heard on that date and the applicant will wait another 8 months or so to be rescheduled. If the matter is heard after this long wait time, the decision is then taking several months to be received – even on the simplest of cases which is black and white – or when one party fails to attend the hearing. This is not acceptable in any way for a government body (any government body) to function in this inefficient and detrimental way to the citizens and residents of the Province of Ontario.
The system is broken. It is broken for Landlords, who are not receiving any payments from tenants who have carte blanche ability to now live for free for a year or more. It is not working for supply when you consider the number of Landlords that are now selling their homes to no longer need to deal with the stress of creditors breathing down their necks for payments on mortgages, property taxes, utility bills, etc. Buyers are unable to move into any home purchased by the closing date when they genuinely intend to reside in the home they just purchased. Buyers are going homeless when they inherit a tenant who is simply exercising their right to a hearing. As an aside to this – the right to a hearing was supposed to be for when a tenant believed the notice (N12) and subsequent L2 Application was filed in bad faith – now it is being used as a catch all to remain for a year or more until the LTB finally gets to the file and hears the matter. During this time, the buyer is responsible for the mortgage payments on this property as well as covering their own living expenses while they wait for access to their home. ** I have less empathy for the corporate landlords or those buying investment properties through this process)**
It is not working for Tenants who are now subjected to increased costs for housing to recover the losses due to the inefficient process. It is harmful to tenants that depend on their landlords to provide safe and stable housing and applications ie N5 – ” Notice to End your Tenancy for Interfering with Others, Damage or Overcrowding” Notice to End your Tenancy for Interfering with Others, Damage or Overcrowding” / N6 – ” Notice to End your Tenancy for Illegal Acts or Misrepresenting Income in a Rent-Geared-to-Income Rental Unit” / N7 – “Notice to End your Tenancy for Causing Serious Problems in the Rental Unit or Residential Complex” – are filed to ensure this when another tenant is causing serious issues, engaging in criminal activity, threats of violence and police involvement. The affected tenant can file their T2 application to the LTB for loss of enjoyment etc. and there are financial awards, abatements and consequences for the Landlords inaction – however this does not extend to the LTB and their broken process. There is no recourse.
Safety is at risk when a tenant refuses entry to a landlord who provides proper and reasonable notice to attend and ensure that smoke alarms / co detectors are present and in good working order. The recent deaths of children in Hamilton from a house fire at a rental property should anger all of us. Any injury is unacceptable. Fire Code is being violated in units, by tenants, who are adding walls and rooms to single family homes to allow for more people to move in, collecting rent from the ‘subtenants’ and property standards and fire code is not being followed/adhered to. There are no fines or other repercussion for this behavior to the tenant – the Landlord is responsible. Even with an order from the Fire department or Municipality to revert the unit back to a single family home or bring the unit up to code is registered against the homeowner (landlord) – the landlord who had no knowledge or was refused access to check up on the property is not being granted an expedited hearing. Wait – that is incorrect – the last one I know of was 7 months later for the expedited hearing (after a 10 months wait for the date).
Lack of improvement (even 10 months after all restrictions from COVID-19 have been lifted in the Province) has led many to resort to the media for assistance in getting their story out. This is being monitored by the adjudicators at the LTB and mentioned both in hearings and in decisions rendered as a means to ‘check’ the landlord or apply sanctions for attempting to exercise their rights. How is this acceptable?
Further to add to the frustrations is the jurisdictional limits for compensation of the LTB. Many, many cases are filed when small amounts of arrears or damages is owed, however with the constant delays and inefficiency of the current process, files are now going well over the $35,000 limit the LTB can award. The Landlord would now need to file to the competent court to recover the amount in it’s entirety because the matter cannot be heard twice. The LTB has exclusive jurisdiction over matters within the Residential Tenants Act (RTA) so the landlord is unable to file to the court from the start assuming the cost will be over the jurisdictional limitation. This means that to proceed – after a year or more waiting without payment being received, they have to ‘forgive’ the excess of the $35,000 for multiple applications… or start over with the Court and wait another year or more.
While I can appreciate that a Landlord is considered a business, what business is expected to endure losses to this extent in the Province? When COVID hit and affected small to large businesses across the Province, the Government stepped up and made subsidies and grants available. None of this was for the small business landlord. Landlords in Ontario are losing their own personal homes, having the banks foreclose on the rental property they invested their life savings into, marriages are dissolving at breakneck speed, health concerns are prevalent and some are resorting to suicide out of sheer desperation. All of this is a direct result of the inefficiency and lack of proper standards of the current LTB process.
Even if the landlords are needing to ‘close down’ their business, the rules and guidelines of the RTA does not allow this to be easy without great losses incurred. The impact on the seller and buyer is astounding and being allowed to continue so the Province can consign the burden of housing costs to the small landlord without any support or conscience.
I am hopeful that something (anything really) will be done to actually address this ongoing and compounding issue. As the delegated authority to oversee the LTB, your office does have the power to effect change. This can be done without overstepping the Members or their autonomy in deciding matters. The hearing process itself is broken. Attend one virtually yourself – (ensure they don’t know who you are if you do). If the block starts at 0900 – the first matter is not being addressed until at least 1030am if not later due to the sign in process, allocating different rooms, the availability of DRO’s and TDC etc. Members are spending the first 50 minutes – after attendance is taken – simply moving parties into different rooms, explaining the process etc. In a 4 hour block that has on average 10 matters scheduled, losing an hour and 40 minutes means that only 1 or 2 matters are being heard that block. If parties agree there may be more cases decided – but decisions are not forthcoming in any standard of time if the adjudicator is the author of the decision. (DRO’s are fairly efficient if everyone can come to a resolution). Many, many cases are dismissed on preliminary issues and technical errors (but only on the landlord part). Why can these issues not be addressed when the application is received by the Board and not after a year wait? Have a competent party analyze the contents of the application and ensure that obvious errors that are considered fatal flaws are sent back instead of wasting that precious 3 hour limit to hear the matter which is addressed in 30 minutes as being unable to proceed. I mean – by the time any N12/L2 is heard, the termination date has long passed. IF the applicant is unable to provide evidence that their statutory requirements have been met (compensation paid, declaration/affidavit filed with the application), then the applicant should be made aware so they can fix and resubmit without the need to waste everyone’s time. Have preliminary issues be required to be brought forth and decided via written submissions only like many Courts do. Have more TDC available and require them to reach out to tenants on preliminary issues matters – given the number of times cases have been adjourned for lack of access to counsel…
- N4’s – “Notice to End your Tenancy Early for Non-payment of Rent” / L1 – “Application to evict a tenant for non-payment of rent and to collect rent the tenant owes” – if the applicant provided the lease agreement and there is an error on the termination date – return it. IF there is no rent being paid there should be a maximum amount allegedly owed (perhaps the equivalent of 3 months rent) and the matter is expedited. No case should be delayed until the threshold is surpassed.
- N5 / N6 / N7 cases – when safety is concerned, these matters should be scheduled within 30 days – have adjudicators who focus ONLY on these cases or subject matter experts who can hear, analyze and research the appropriate case law and make timely decisions. If another competent body of the government or lawmakers at any level issues an order to comply (ie fire code, building code, police / courts in the case of no contact orders / harassment / assaults / uttering threats etc where criminal charges are laid), expedite these cases to be heard within 30 – 60 days as people are literally being harmed and are at a risk of imminent serious harm or death.
- Hire more adjudicators – use mandatory overtime policies, have a better review process for delays on issuing orders, oversee the progress of cases, basically manage the performance of the members receiving public funds for failing to provide public services according to the mandate they are guided by.
- I note that the LTB is starting to schedule weekend and evening hearings. This is a step in the right direction – albeit a year too late to begin but I digress.
I realize this may be a pipe dream – to have housing matters decided in an efficient, fair and transparent way, but I am hopeful that with the backlash, complaints, and special interest groups SOLO (Small Ownership Landlords of Ontario) ACTO (Advocacy Centre for Tenants of Ontario), ACORN, etc bombarding the government, their MPP’s, and your office with information, statistics and complaints – that something will actually happen and soon. This is a crisis and needs to be treated as such.
I am hopeful to engage in a meaningful conversation and not just be given lip service or a standardized email back (but know not to hold my breath).
Sincerely,
A concerned Landlord, and tax paying resident of Ontario
