Have You Offered a Payment Plan to your Tenant?

Every landlord should attempt to negotiate terms of payment for rent arrears with their tenant. If possible, the offer of terms of payment should be made in writing. The offer should be disclosed and filed with the board as evidence in advance of the hearing.

On every non-payment of rent application seeking an eviction during COVID-19, the board must consider to delay or deny an eviction based on section 83(6) of the Residential Tenancies Act, which states in part:

“…. in determining whether to exercise its powers under subsection (1) the Board shall consider whether the landlord has attempted to negotiate an agreement with the tenant including terms of payment for the tenant’s arrears.”

Every landlord should attempt to negotiate terms of payment for rent arrears with their tenant. If possible, the offer of terms of payment should be made in writing. The offer should be disclosed and filed with the board as evidence in advance of the hearing.

The board is required to consider delaying or denying an eviction if the landlord fails to attempt to negotiate with the tenant.   

***************************

Paralegal Representation

Every day our office receives calls from landlords across Ontario wanting to hire me for LTB matters.

If you need to hire an experienced, licensed paralegal, contact me:

Marshall Yarmus
Civil Litigations

(416) 229-1479 or (343) 600-7722

https://civilparalegal.com/home_services/landlord-and-tenant-board/

Is there a requirement to offer a payment plan during Covid-19?

It is important that your application gets into the LTB queue as soon as possible as the queue for LTB hearings was already very backlogged before this Covid-19 situation began. Ideally, LTB applications should be processed in a month, but it was already taking 2 – 3 months to get a hearing date. Now, it will be much longer.

Due to the extraordinary COVID-19 situation, many tenants are having trouble with their finances.

If a tenant has not paid their rent, the first action the landlord should take is to contact the tenant to ask why the rent was not paid.

Has the tenant’s income severally dropped? Did the tenant lose their job?

You should inquire if the tenant will be automatically receiving or applying for government benefits.

Be careful not to harass your tenant. You should document or note any conversations you have had with the tenant about how they will pay rent during this time.

If the tenant is making the effort to pay all or part of their rent, and is availing themselves of government initiatives, a landlord should try to work with the tenant.

If your tenant is deliberately refusing to pay rent, refusing to work with you, or refusing to provide you information on their financial circumstances and the government benefits they have applied for, you should immediately apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) for an eviction hearing.

A new section of the Residential Tenancies Act, section 83(6), now requires the Board on all non-payment of rent applications during COVID-19 to consider whether to delay or deny an eviction based on whether the landlord offered the tenant a payment plan.

The offer of a payment plan should not to be confused with a rent reduction. A rent reduction done improperly, can have severe consequences for the landlord.

It is important that your application gets into the LTB queue as soon as possible as the queue for LTB hearings was already very backlogged before Covid-19 began.

***************************

Paralegal Representation

Every day our office receives calls from landlords wanting to hire me for LTB matters.

If you need to hire an experienced, licensed paralegal, contact me:

Marshall Yarmus
Civil Litigations
(416) 229-1479 or (343) 600-7722

https://civilparalegal.com/home_services/landlord-and-tenant-board/

Eviction for Non-Payment of Rent

Many landlords decide to represent themselves on a non-payment of rent applications at the Landlord Tenant Board Ontario (LTB) as they believe it is easy. A lot of the time it is easy. However, it can become incredibly complex.

Many landlords decide to represent themselves on a non-payment of rent applications at the Landlord Tenant Board Ontario (LTB) as they believe it is easy. A lot of the time it is easy. However, it can become incredibly complex. Most of the time you will have no advanced notice of issues the tenant will raise to make your non-payment of rent application complex.

An L1 application is filed at the LTB to obtain a judgment and evict a tenant. This is preceded by a N4 notice served on the tenant.

If the N4 notice contains certain errors the board member may decline to give you an eviction order. Errors such as a missing an apartment number/unit description, improper termination date, math errors, and failing to properly state the start and end of a month or other term may mean no eviction order.

Section 82 of the RTA allows a tenant to raise any issue on a non-payment of application which they could raise if they brought their own application. The tenant can give the landlord as little as 5 days notice of their intention to raise these issues and sue the landlord. In rare cases, the requirement for notice to the landlord can be waived.

Issues which a tenant can raise and sue you for with little notice to you include: alleging the landlord collected an illegal deposit or fee, harassment, illegal entry, illegal rent increase interfering with the tenant’s reasonable enjoyment, and maintenance issues.

A skilled paralegal Ontario may be able to deal with these issues with little notice. Self-represented landlords usually don’t have the skills, knowledge of the statue and case law, or the understanding of the process to properly oppose the tenant’s section 82 issues.

Most self-represented landlords are unaware or don’t take into account the effect of section 83 of the RTA seriously.

Section 83 requires the board to consider all the circumstances in deciding whether it would be unfair to delay or deny an eviction

Even if the landlord proves that rent is owed the board still has the power to delay or deny an eviction. If the tenant proves certain circumstances exist the board must deny an eviction.

At an L1 non-payment of rent application the tenant can try to work out a deal with the landlord to enter into a payment plan to pay off the rent owing.

Many self-represented landlords are unaware that if they refuse to enter into a reasonable payment plan, the board may impose a payment plan on the landlord.

Paralegals know how to properly deal with these situations. Many self-represented landlords do not know what to say to the board member regarding these issues. How to evict a tenant in Ontario is not as easy as some landlords believe.

Also see our blog on Pay and Stay Orders at https://www.civilparalegal.com/how-does-a-standard-pay-and-stay-order-work/

If you need representation on a non-payment of rent application, contact Marshall Yarmus at Civil Litigations at www.CivilParalegal.com or call 416-229-1479 or call 343-600-7722