Monthly Archives: June 2015

Can a landlord first evict tenant and then seek rent for failure to give notice?

The above tweet references an article in today’s Toronto Star. Obviously I have made no effort to independently verify the facts. Frankly, I hope the facts in this article are NOT true. Nevertheless, assuming the truth of these facts, I think this deserves some comment.

The article begins with:

One of Toronto’s biggest landlords has an in-house collections agency that pursues evicted tenants for two months’ rent because they didn’t give “proper notice” when they were kicked out of their apartments, the Star has learned.

MetCap Living Management, which has more than 10,000 rental units in the city concentrated in Parkdale and Scarborough, and Suite Collections operate out of the same Richmond St. E. office. Suite’s president, Brent Merrill, who also sits on MetCap’s corporate board, says everyone must give 60 days’ notice to vacate an apartment, even if they’re being evicted.

It is MetCap’s position that residents who breach their lease or give improper notice are required to pay the rent for the unit until it is re-rented or until the date that would have been the last day of the tenancy had proper notice been given,” wrote Merrill in an email to the Star. “We believe that we are following the law in the Province of Ontario.”

The Ontario Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing said the practice does not appear to be appropriate.

“If the landlord gives proper notice of termination and the tenant voluntarily moves out in accordance with the notice, the tenancy is terminated on the effective date of the notice. No rent is payable after the termination date, other than existing arrears,” said spokesman Mark Cripps.

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2016 Ontario rent increase guideline set at 2%

Well, at 2% it’s much higher than the “politically motivated 2011 Ontario rent increase guideline of .7%.

Okay, this is interesting news. But does it really matter that much? In most cases probably not because real estate is a long term investment, and when it comes to Toronto residential rents:

1. Your best Toronto rent is not necessarily your highest rent; and

2.You need to be thoughtful about when, whether and how much to raise residential rents anyway.

And as a reminder:

On the one hand:

But, on the other hand:

Procedure at the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board @LandlordU

I believe that the landlords should work hard to avoid Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board. Although not intended to be unfair to landlords, it does provide protection to Ontario tenants. The procedure is costly and dangerous. Although landlord lawyers at Landlordrelief will assist you with tenant eviction, we work hard to avoid this necessity.

In order to avoid the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board, Ontario landlords should:

1. Be careful in how they select residential tenants.

2. Treat their residential tenants with respect and dignity.

3. Respect their properties so that the tenants will respect the properties.

4. Work WITH tenants to end difficult tenancies, rather than work AGAINST tenants in an adversarial proceeding.

Notwithstanding this advice, I came across three posts from Ontario Justice Education Network that helps people (both Ontario landlords and tenants) prepare themselves for a landlord and tenant hearing.

Here they are: