A Hamilton tenant says he is impressed with the recent decision of a “fantastic” judge to fine his former owner $ 100,000 for illegally renewing her and three other tenants, even if they never recover their homes.
“That is a good place to start showing Ontario owners that they can’t simply throw their tenants,” said Darlene Wesley to CBC Hamilton.
The Senior had lived in his apartment in the center for almost 20 years and a rental payment was never lost when, in February 2023, the owner of the building, Kevin Moniz, evicted it to carry out extensive renovations.
Wesley informed him in writing and in person he intended to return after the work was carried out, as is his right under the Ontario law. But in a matter of months, he had rented it to another person.
He did the same with three other tenants who lived in the five -units building, including Wesley’s daughter. The tenants testified during a trial against Moniz and the Cornerstone Select Properties Property Administration Company in the Hamilton Provincial Crimes on May 12.
Paz Judge Linda Crawford found Moniz guilty of four charges of not giving the tenants the right of first rejection for their units and foured $ 25,000 for each one.
“A general deterrent element in my opinion is very important in this type of circumstances, where there is an owner with a small building that was once affordable for people,” Crawford told the Court.
Moniz was not present for the trial and did not respond to comments requests.
Crawford gave him two weeks to pay the $ 100,000, a large amount for the violations of the residential lease law.
The charges against Moniz were established last year by the Ontario rental housing control unit (RHEU), which has the mandate of maintaining the rights of the owner and the tenant and investigating the complaints. It works independently of the landlord and the Tenant Board (LTB).
In comparison, in all 2022, the fines derived from the positions established by RHEU totaled $ 121,800.
The tenant cannot afford a new place
Crawford discovered that Moniz acted deliberately and the impacts on the tenants have been “devastating.”
“In my opinion, there was enough foresight to renew the apartments and made the decision to turn them essentially and rent them more than double what I had been obtaining before,” he said.
Before being evicted, the four tenants said that each paid less than $ 700 per month for rent. A new tenant who moved to one of the units after the renovations told the court that currently pays $ 1,500.
The eviction process began for the four tenants in March 2021, when they received notices from N13 from Moniz. His cases were for the LTB, which ruled in favor of Moniz that the units should be empty for him to complete renovations.
Three of the tenants moved to Wesley. All testified that they told Moniz in writing that they would return to their units when the work was done.
Tenant Robert Jewel said he had no choice.
He worked a minimum wage job and wanted to maintain the unit he had been able to pay for 25 years, he testified. But one night, when the renovations were supposed to happen, he walked next to the building and through a window he saw someone in his unit’s living room, watching television. He later learned that he was a new tenant.
“And to be honest, I cried that night when I discovered that my apartment had been removed,” Jewel said. “It is as if it were a second -class citizen, suddenly, just because this greedy person appears.”
You cannot afford to rent a new place, Jewel said he has been surfing in the houses of friends and family since he was evicted.
“I’m almost on the street and I don’t have my own place and that loss of freedom, I really feel a lot,” said Jewel.
FOULED PROPERTY ADMINISTRATION COMPANY
Wesley and his daughter had no choice but to find a place together and now pay $ 2,000 per month, an agreement that Wesley described as a “nightmare.”
“Now I have nothing because all my money is going to rent,” he told the Court.
She said she left her place in 2023 thinking that she would definitely return while taking all the steps she was supposed to do.
In the weeks prior to the move, he had provided Moniz several copies of a signed letter that indicated his intentions, and verbally told him the same in front of a Cornerstone representative: the Moniz Property Administration Company had hired to find new tenants.
Welsey testified that on another occasion someone in Cornerstone was showing a unit to the possible tenants. She told that person: “‘All apartments … have the right of first rejection’ and he said: ‘I know, I know.’
The company’s president Jeff Varcoe represented Cornerstone in the Court.
He denied the accusations, saying that no one in his company knew about the “complete renewed building” and has not been able to corroborate the Wesley account.
Crawford said he did not find the testimony of Varcoe credible and fined a corner $ 25,000, plus a victim surcharge of $ 6,250, for not guaranteeing that Wesley had the opportunity to return to his unit.
“That is not something that we have the financial capacity to cover at all,” said Varcoe. “This will bank us.”
Crawford gave the company a year to pay.
