Letter of Support for Bill 230, Housing Equity and Rental Transparency Act, 2024
Our MPP Stephanie Bowman, Don Valley West, introduced Bill 230, Housing Equity and Rental Transparency Act, 2024, at the Legislative Assembly of Ontario on November 27, 2024. We were pleased to provide our feedback and a letter of support.
The amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act proposed in this Bill would improve not only the lives of tenants, but the Landlord and Tenant Board as well. We see the challenges tenants face every day at our community legal clinic, and we have been advocating for similar changes that would make a difference. We thank MPP Bowman for reaching out to DVCLS and putting this Bill forward.
Please read our letter below.
November 28, 2024
To Whom it May Concern:
Re: Housing Equity and Rental Transparency Act
Don Valley Community Legal Services is pleased to provide this letter of support for the Housing Equity and Rental Transparency Act (the “Act”). The Act contains many amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (the “RTA”) that will have an immediate and positive impact on the lives of tenants. As a community legal clinic providing legal advice and representation to tenants at the Landlord and Tenant Board (“LTB”), we consider these amendments both necessary and responsive to the current and unprecedented challenges facing tenants.
One of these challenges is delays at the LTB, which Ombudsman Ontario describes as moribund. In its report, “Administrative Justice Delayed, Fairness Denied”, Ombudsman Ontario highlights the preferential treatment the LTB gives to scheduling eviction applications filed by landlords over maintenance applications filed by tenants. At the time its report was published in May 2023, Ombudsman Ontario found that “landlord applications were generally being scheduled for hearing within six to nine months of receipt, and tenant applications could take up to two years to be scheduled”.
In other words, delays at the LTB are such that a landlord can neglect their maintenance obligation, and still demand that their tenant pay an increased rent. If the tenant files a maintenance application at the LTB, and subsequently refuses to pay a rent increase pending the adjudication of their application, the landlord can file an eviction application against the tenant at the LTB. The landlord’s eviction application will subsequently be heard by the LTB before the tenant’s maintenance application, even if the tenant filed their maintenance application months before the landlord issued their notice of rent increase. Consequently, tenants seeking to hold their landlords accountable at the LTB for neglecting their maintenance obligations regularly have to pay their landlords one, and sometimes even two, rent increases before the LTB actually adjudicates their application, and holds their landlord to account.
In response to this challenge, which is blatantly unfair to tenants, the Act would amend the RTA so that a landlord’s rent increase cannot take effect while a tenant’s maintenance application is pending adjudication at the LTB.
One factor that contributes to the delays we see at the LTB is a pattern of landlords filing applications for rental arrears when the amount of arrears owing is minimal – sometimes less than the $186 cost to file the application itself. These frivolous applications clog up an overburdened system and unnecessarily threaten eviction. There is no reason why a tenant should lose their home for a minor debt that could be easily solved with a conversation, a repayment plan, or, if necessary, an application to the LTB for repayment. The Act addresses this issue by restricting a landlord’s ability to issue an eviction notice for rental arrears to situations where a tenant owes their landlord an amount equivalent to at least one rental period (e.g. one month’s rent), ensuring that the remedies of the RTA are fair and equitable.
The Act takes a further step towards equity that truly lives up to its name by addressing a distressing point of unfairness. Currently, the RTA allows a landlord to terminate a tenancy for persistent late payments of rent. This applies without exception, even in instances where tenants have their rent paid directly to the landlord through various subsidies and social assistance programs like the Ontario Disability Support Program (“ODSP”) or Ontario Works (“OW”). Many of these programs pay landlords via bulk cheques that cover the rent for all the tenants in the building that have a pay-direct system set up. If these cheques are lost, cancelled or delayed, the tenant is held responsible and can face eviction for persistent late payment of rent, despite having no control over how the payment is delivered and, in many cases, having no knowledge that it was delivered late.
This raises concerns of fairness for all tenants in receipt of social assistance, but especially for ODSP recipients. ODSP issues its cheques on the last business day of the month to pay for the rent that is due on the first of the month. Further, the ODSP policy directive states that the pay direct amount “must be specific to the current month (e.g. the rent amount deducted from the September cheque applies to the month of September).” The policy therefore effectively mandates that rent be paid late. This same policy then states that a pay direct program can be implemented when an ODSP recipient has frequently made late payments of rent or utilities, noting pay direct as a solution to this problem. When setting up a pay direct arrangement, ODSP sends a letter to the landlord stating that it is still the tenant’s responsibility to ensure payments are made in full and on time.
The absurd result: tenants who have taken all steps possible to ensure their rent is paid, many of whom have implemented pay-direct at the recommendation of their landlord or social assistance caseworker to specifically address the issue of late or non-payment, find themselves necessarily in breach of their obligations under the RTA and facing eviction. Esoteric as it sounds, this issue is not hypothetical. We have had tenants come to our clinic for assistance because their tenancy has been terminated on the basis of late payments paid directly to the landlord from a social service agency, often at the landlord’s request, that the tenant can neither monitor nor control.
The Act addresses this point of inconsistency and unfairness by preventing landlords from issuing notices of termination to tenants for persistent late payment of rent if part or all of their rent is paid directly to the landlord from a social assistance program.
We are pleased to see these amendments in the Act that we know will improve not only the lives of tenants, but the LTB as well. We see the challenges tenants face every day at our community legal clinic, and we have been advocating for similar changes that would make a difference. We are in full support of the Act, and we appreciate the opportunity to provide our feedback and comments.
Sincerely,
Don Valley Community Legal Services
Per: Bhavin Bilimoria, Director of Legal Services
Karly Wilson, Staff Lawyer, Housing Team Lead
Laura Anonen, Community Development Worker