Behind figurative closed doors, some Ontario landlords are discussing the merits of illegal evictions instead of going through the backed-up Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB).
"Does anyone know what the penalty is for a landlord to change the locks and deny access to an Un paying [sic] tenant from a property?" Innisfil realtor Lori Alexander-Collins wrote on Wednesday in a private, 33,000-plus member Facebook group for Ontario landlords. "I’m aware of the fact that’s [sic] it’s 'illegal' but so is not paying your rent for one year after signing a contract. Please no lessons on the LTB, just wondering what the penalty is. We are wondering if it’s less than the year the tenant hasn’t paid. If we all banned [sic] together we could clog up 'the system' some more with whining unpaying [sic] tenants."
Alexander-Collins told QP Briefing she asked the question on behalf of someone else. "Thankfully, I have wonderful paying tenants in my units," she said in an email.
She said she doesn't believe in breaking the law, "but I wouldn't criticize a landlord for changing the locks and taking back their possession that will be taken from them if payments aren't made."
Alexander-Collins is no longer a member of the Facebook group. But she's not alone in her quest to figure out just how much landlords can get away with to force out tenants.
"If I evict a tenant for personal use and sell the property before year end what would happen[?]" Bobby Cull wrote in a September post. (In Ontario, if a landlord ends a tenancy to move into the unit, they can't rent or sell it for a year). "Should the tenant pursue legal action against me, how would they collect? If I didn’t draw a paycheque how could they garnish, and if my name wasn’t on another title, how could they place a lien on me? What would the fine be and how could they collect?"
Cull said she wanted to sell because she was "tired of dealing with losers and want my money after 20 years of headaches."
Someone posting about pretending to move into a unit would be openly talking about fraud, said Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations Director Geordie Dent.
Many landlords posting these questions say they don't want to deal with the LTB — Ontario's only legal avenue for landlord/tenant disputes. Landlords have complained that the LTB is backed up for months, while renters say online hearings are chaotic, dysfunctional and unfair for people without legal representation.
It may get worse for small landlords, as the tribunal said it plans to focus on above-guideline rent increases — which mainly affect corporate landlords — and previously adjourned hearings for the rest of 2022.
"Focusing on these applications will help ensure that the oldest applications get scheduled and heard as a priority, as the LTB continues to find solutions to address service delays," spokesperson Janet Deline said in a statement. "The LTB will continue to schedule urgent matters on a priority basis."
Anecdotally, illegal evictions are on the rise, according to Douglas Kwan, the director of advocacy and legal services at Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario. But legal "cash for keys" deals — where a landlord pays a tenant to move out — are more common, he said. The Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing didn't provide statistics on evictions by press time.
Dent said his organization has dealt with a "massive wave" of illegal evictions since 2017 — between 25,000–40,000 — but that it's unrelated to LTB delays.
NDP housing critic Jessica Bell said the LTB and the ministry's enforcement arm are tremendously understaffed. She said her office dealt with a case where a father went to get his vaccine and came back to find his landlord had changed the locks.
"So he then had to run around and try and find alternative accommodation with a family member because there was no place for him to go to get back into his home," she said.
"When our office calls them to have them intervene in a matter where there has been a clear violation — a landlord has assaulted a tenant, for instance — the rental housing enforcement unit almost always says, 'We do not have the capacity to respond to this case,'" she said.
Alexander-Collins told QPB she thinks landlords will be "forced to take matters into their own hands" if the LTB isn't fixed. "How else would you suggest they take possession back of their unit or house they saved their money to buy?"
The Real Estate Council of Ontario issued a statement from registrar Joseph Richer in response to QP Briefing's questions about Alexander-Collins.
"Registrants are required to comply with the law that directly regulates their conduct (the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act), which prohibits them from counselling someone to break the law. Registrants who engage in such conduct, including counselling their clients to breach the Residential Tenancies Act, should expect to be prosecuted," he said.
Landlords can be fined up to $50,000 for offences under the Residential Tenancies Act. But another member, Ashley Marija, suggested breaking the law could be worth the risk.
"The overwhelming majority of bad faith N12s are under [$10,000] in judgements," she wrote. An N12 form is used to notify a tenant that the landlord needs to move into their unit. "Most are just rent differential for a year and some really minor fees lol."
Ontario landlords can be ordered to pay 12 months' rent differential — the extra amount a tenant is paying in their new unit after being wrongly evicted.
Commenting on a post asking for the quickest way to evict a tenant, Ken Jansen said he would "do everything I could to make their lives hell. I'd leave an eviction order on their door every few days (embarrass them), visit them at their work to ask for money, I'd give as many 24 hour notices to come inside to inspect as I could, I would disrupt their utilities for 'service work' needed, and I would literally bother the hell out of them every single day until they paid or moved."
He continued, "I know many will say that 'you can't do that' or 'you could get into trouble with the LTB', but I would take that chance.... I would NOT just let someone live in my house for free. I wish more people would stand up and not just accept tenants not paying."
Cull and Jansen are also no longer members of the group.
Some landlords have also turned to a company with a list of tenants' rent payment history "positive and negative ... behaviour." Lawyers and tenant advocates have said Landlord Credit Bureau has essentially found a way to create a tenant blacklist through a legal loophole: it keeps track of good behaviour as well. The company is a registered credit bureau in Ontario, which means it can impact tenants' credit ratings.
Group member Kayla Andrade called it a "game changer" for landlords.
"We reported our past tenant and he called within 24 hours trying to work things out with us," she wrote. "No judgment needed to report and no consent needed."
This story was updated after publication with a statement from RECO.
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