Family evicted by Saudi diplomat claims wrongdoing

OTTAWA — An Ottawa military family alleges their former landlord — Saudi Arabia’s top diplomat in Canada — acted in bad faith when he gave them a notice of eviction, claiming he intended to move into their Vanier rental home with his own family.

The home is now listed for sale for $950,000, two months after Vivian and Tim Funk moved out with their two young children.

In documents filed with the Landlord and Tenant Board, the Funks detailed how their landlord, Sulaiman Alaqeel, acted to end their tenancy by allegedly pretending he was moving in himself. This was preceded by an attempt to market the house to new tenants for significantly more money when the Funks had not given notice indicating they would be leaving, the documents alleged. “The landlord’s representative,” according to the documents, allegedly told the Funks they needed to accept a $500 monthly rent increase and a new lease if they wanted to continue living in the rental property, which wouldn’t be legal under the Residential Tenancies Act.

“Dealing with all of this — and it spanned from July until October — was a massive interruption and just a massive amount of stress,” Vivian Funk said in an interview.

The Funks are seeking financial compensation for a year’s worth of rent and their moving expenses.

Alaqeel’s lawyer, in a letter to this newspaper, described the Funks’ position as “not based in fact with any cogent evidence” and “mere speculation.”

Alaqeel intended to move into the house when the Funks vacated, but the diplomat was recalled to Saudi Arabia at the end of October, more than two years before his term in Canada was supposed to end, according to his lawyer. Having no choice but to return to Saudi Arabia, he was therefore compelled to sell, his lawyer said.

Saudi Arabia doesn’t currently have an ambassador in Canada and is represented by Alaqeel. As chargé d’affaires ad interim, he’s the country’s provisional head of mission.

Vivian, a lawyer, and her husband, an officer in the air force, have a three-year-old and six-month-old. Househunting and moving in the middle of a pandemic was very stressful, Vivian said, and they ultimately paid a high price to secure a new home in Ottawa’s red-hot housing market.

They had been renting the modern, four-bedroom duplex since October 2018, under a two-year lease. Alaqeel bought the property from its previous owner in September 2019 and, according to Vivian, told the Funks early on that he intended to move in with his family when their lease ended.

This is one of a limited number of permissible reasons, under the Residential Tenancies Act, for a landlord to end a tenancy when a fixed-term lease expires; if neither landlord nor tenant moves to terminate it, the tenancy renews automatically.

The Funks learned in July that Alaqeel wanted to show the unit to other potential tenants, according to their application to the Landlord and Tenant Board. The

Funks responded by saying they hadn’t given or received notice to leave and that the landlord couldn’t legally rent to someone else, the application alleged.

The Funks found a Kijiji post, advertising the property as rentable for $3,200 monthly starting Oct. 1: $500 more than the Funks were paying, according to their LTB application. A screenshot of the Kijiji ad was attached.

Not long after, a representative of the landlord called to say they could only stay in the home if they signed a new lease and agreed to a $500 rent increase, the LTB documents alleged. The Funks said they explained that they couldn’t be forced to do this and that eviction could only happen for a valid reason.

“Lo and behold, I get a form saying he is going to be moving in himself,” Vivian said.

While the Funks’ ultimate plan was to buy a home, Vivian said they would have likely held off until the COVID-19 pandemic passed or they were posted elsewhere by the military, and continued renting if Alaqeel hadn’t been moving in. They’d just had a baby in the middle of a pandemic, home prices were sky-high and viewings were logistically difficult.

The Funks also allege in their LTB application that they weren’t given the requisite 60 days to vacate in the eviction notice from Alaqeel. A copy provided to Postmedia was dated Aug. 4 and said he wanted the Funks to move out by Oct. 1.

“We could have just stayed and said, ‘No, we’re not leaving,’” Vivian said. “But we didn’t. We acted as though he was in good faith, even though we were suspicious.”

Because of a recent history of stressful landlord experiences, they decided they needed the security that buying a home would afford. So, they did, settling for what was available and paying a lot more than they think they should have, and moved out of the house at the end of September.

A month later, they learned the house was being shown to potential buyers, including some of their former neighbours, the LTB documents alleged. A listing, active on the Royal Lepage website this past week, advertised the home as “vacant and move-in ready,” for sale for $950,000.

What Alaqeel had indicated, via a legal notice to end the Funks’ tenancy, was that he would be moving in with his spouse and child for at least a year. Legally, that’s a legitimate reason for eviction; wanting to sell your property is not.

“It seems like he’s just trying to take advantage of the housing market in Ottawa being the way it is,” Vivian alleged. “Or he’s legitimately leaving the country and doesn’t need it, but, either way, it’s not acceptable behaviour.

“We did everything on the up and up, and I think, as a diplomat, he should be doing the same thing.”

By going public with their story, Vivian is hoping to hold their former landlord to account and to deter this sort of situation in the future. While the Funks are familiar with their tenant rights, not everyone is.

“If it can happen to us, it can happen to anyone.”