After losing more than $ 8,000 before a person who describes as “a professional tenant”, the owner Nicholas Sikatori wants provincial politicians to set the “bad” pestillo “of Ontario (LTB).
In the upper part of their list it is allowing the owners to quickly evict tenants in clear cases of lack of payment, avoiding what is often a process of months that, according to him, it hurts both the tenants and the owners .
“It’s easy to fix,” Sikatori told CBC News. “Without rent, without stay. The owners leave the empty units due to risk [of renting to bad tenants] right now.”
Sikatori suffered a six -month test to evict a tenant who stopped paying after the second month, intentionally delaying the legal eviction process, then demanded thousands of dollars in payment to leave.
It began last August when Sikatori bought an eight -units apartment at Ross Street in St. Thomas, Ontario, renting a two -room apartment to a man who receives a monthly stipend of the Ontario works program.
His agreement was that the Ontario Works rental supplement of $ 1,200 of the tenant was paid directly to Sikatori, and the tenant agreed to cover the balance of the monthly income of $ 1,800.
Sikatori said the man paid the rental first and last month and also paid for September. After that, Sikatori said his tenant made no other payment.
‘The owners leave the empty units due to the risk at this time’ – – –Claire Whittnebel, Acorn
Sikatori presented a form L1 before the LTB, which is a legal eviction warning used in cases of lack of payment.
However, it took months to develop, partly because the tenant was able to obtain two suspension orders approved by the Board, each delaying the eviction in more than a month. Sikatori said that the tenant also did not appear to some of LTB’s online audiences, and those no shows joined the delay.
“The judge would only postpone him, leaving me helpless,” said Sikatori.
A few months after the turbulent lease, Sikatori said his tenant asked for $ 10,000 to leave an “cash” agreement.
“He wasn’t going to leave another way,” said Sikatori. “He was not afraid of being evicted by the Sheriff.”
Sikatori dug a little and said he knew that his tenant had used similar tactics against the previous owners. Sikatori said the last owner gave Sikatori a false positive reference just to get rid of him.
Desperate, and now outside thousands of rent, Sikatori threatened to publish his eviction notices against the man in the open room, a website that compiles judicial documents and LTB decisions in an online search database.
Sikatori said the site has become a standard tool for the owners to evaluate the possible tenants. The tenant finally agreed to vacate, as long as Sikatori did not publish his eviction order in the open room and also agreed to stop chasing him for the subsequent income.
“If I had paid $ 10,000, that would have been the first and the rent last month for his next apartment,” said Sikatori.
While the tenants often complain that LTB works against him, Sikatori said that his terrible experience of a month illustrates that the LTB does not serve the owners, because he can link the rental suites for months.
The situation of Sikatori illustrates what was clearly explained in a 2023 scathing, the report of the Ombudsman who found generalized problems in the LTB, illustrating that it does not work well for owners or tenants.
A report published last year by Courts Ontario discovered that LTB had a portfolio of 53,000 unresolved cases.
Tenants also say that necessary solutions are needed
Claire Whittnebel of the London chapter of the Acorn Tenant Rights Group agrees that the LTB “does not work for anyone.” However, he said that any solution from the next government in Queen’s Park must first go to help tenants, saying that the system is weighted in favor of the owners.
‘In our experience, owners have more access to lawyers– Claire Whittnebel
He would like to see a return to audiences in person, which are now held by video chat, and a classification process for tenant applications to accelerate the audition process.
“In our experience, owners have more resources to access lawyers,” he said. “The system should be improved, but our approach is in tenant situations.”
What the parties say
Ontario PC told CBC News in November that they are spending additional $ 6.5 million for 40 new LTB judges along with five new staff members.
Also last fall, the province announced that it would present the Cut the bureaucracy, the Ontario Construction Law To accelerate operations in the LTB, allowing the personnel to ignore small errors in the applications and provide executives the power to reallocate cases to a new judge if the original cannot complete a hearing.
A spokesman for the Ministry of the Attorney General said that the province has made recent investments in the LTB, including the additional expenditure of $ 6.5 million in 2023-24 for 40 new judges and five new employees.
Acorn was critical of these changes, saying that they included measures that would allow consumer report agencies plus access to information about tenants who had been left behind in their rent.
In a statement to CBC News, Ontario’s liberals agreed that the LTB “needs a review.”
They are offering phase rental control, and also say they would hire more judges to resolve disputes “in two months.” They also propose an emergency reserve fund to help vulnerable tenants to avoid eviction if they are left behind in the rental due to an emergency. Liberals also want a return to audiences in person and more face to face, including counter service, for tenants who need help with the process.
In a statement issued on Thursday, the NDP said that LTB repair will be part of a broader package of tenants, one that includes “real rental control” so that income does not jump so abruptly when the units are vacant . The NDP also promises to take energetic measures against renovations and limit short -term rentals to the main residence of the owner.
