Board Delays Put Safety At Risk – Is This Fair & Balanced Mr. McGuinty?
Another day at the LTB. The Residential Tenancies Act says that proceedings are supposed to move along at a good clip:
Board shall adopt the most expeditious method of determining the
questions arising in a proceeding that affords to all persons directly
affected by the proceeding an adequate opportunity to know the issues
and be heard on the matter. 2006, c. 17, s. 183.
So today I have a landlord application to evict a tenant, a man who has violent tendencies, who bullies tenants into submission, and who was charged with assault of the superintendent. Including the victim, there were 4 eye-witnesses to the assault at the hearing, one of those being a security guard. Security flagged down an officer on the street the day of the assault, and they arrested the tenant. Charges are still pending before the criminal courts.
We served the N6 and N7 notice of termination at the beginning of July. We filed on July 12th. The tenant has had over a month to find a lawyer, yet he comes in today playing the lawyer card, fired his first one he admits, the second isn’t yet actually retained, yet he feels he has an absolute right to counsel. So did the Member I guess.
So the matter was adjourned to a date over a month from now. The Board and the Minister will tell you they have an expedited process for impaired safety, but it’s a lie, a complete falsehood. In practice, they don’t give a damn about the safety of good tenants in buildings.
I wanted the security guard to testify today (related to the adjournment request by the tenant) that when the officers arrested the tenant, they confided to security that they know this guy, and that even they don’t want to deal with him. We brought documents to the hearing from an online message board where this tenant, a survivalist, talks repeatedly about owning guns and ammunition. His political views on his Facebook page reads:
Listen, and understand. The
Liberal is out there. It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned
with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse – only fear. And it absolutely
will not stop, ever, until your guns are gone.
His favourite quote shown on his Facebook page is:
“HONOR AND COURAGE
ENFORCED BY
SKILL AND COLD STEEL”
But the Member wasn’t interested in hearing any of it. Does nobody remember Columbine or what happened in Norway just last month. I’ve already had one property-manager client stabbed, I wrote about her tragic death in an earlier post on this blog. We don’t need another. The provincial courts are partly to blame as well. When someone allegedly assaults a person, tenant or staff in a building, the bail conditions should always include a prohibition from living in the building until such time as the matter is resolved. It happens sometimes. Most times not.
The LTB isn’t just a little broken in need of fixing. It’s dead at the side of the road. I hope a new government puts it out of its misery.
Terrible that the LTB won't act when the well-being of the building's residents is jeopardized. Why isn't the MSM all over this?
The same thing just happened to me and my husband, The offending tenant who has been vandalizing and harassing us, teamed up with the landlord because we took the landlord to the tribunal because he has allowed his other tenant to continue harassing and stealing from us. this tenant filled out an n5 form under my laundry room door in retaliation, it was not done by the landlord himself, then we get our hearing at the tribunal, and he brings the problem tenant with him to court as a witness and lies that his parlegal was not able to make it to court, I know he did not have him retained because of the way the n5 was filled and filled out with profanities it did not come through the landlord or a paralegal. then the landlord. The tenant we are trying to get evicted, was there as a witness was told to leave the court until asked for his statement would not leave, then the landlord asked that he represent the landlord!!!! Then realizing he has to get a paralegal the judge held the matter over for a month. my husband lost wages to go into court that day, and the day after rent was due the landlord came over and accused my husband of trying to hit him because the door flew open that we have been asking him to fix for months was broken. bottom line they lied and now have more time to lie and harass us, while having access to our shared mail box, where this tenant can steal my mail and continue to key my car!!!
Good read Harry. The system sometimes just does not seem fair or realistic? If the Board member was living in the building as a tenant, I wonder if this would have changed their opinion on the adjournment?
When a particular group is used repeatedly as a punching bag, whether it be on the basis or religion or race or wealth or social status or …, then any conduct against that group, whether theft or murder or hatred, is always justified by the mantra, well they deserve such treatment since they treated us so badly.
So, since landlords have been vilified for so long (and not just in Ontario), it is now standard to blame them for any and all bad behavior by tenants.
My own experience after being assaulted by two friends of a tenant and calling the police was to be banned by the police from using my own hallways in case I might run into the tenant and his friends. Notice that these were not even actual tenants though they lied and said they were tenants. The police could not even be bothered to actually check if they were or were not tenants.
We have never, ever, ever been successful in evicting people based on violence or noise. The only cause appears to be non-payment of rent. Since ultimately, tax collection is affected when people don't pay their rent, the government permits eviction but otherwise it is an uphill battle.
Doing due diligence on a prospective tenant means actually speaking to someone who has dealt with that person. Unfortunately, too many landlords assume they can get rid of bad tenants without too much difficulty. Landlords, disabuse yourself of that notion. Far better to lose some rent than to ever allow a bad tenant inside your building.