Tenant from hell is at it again, landlord says
A year after jail sentence, Nina Willis accused of being months behind in rent
Toronto’s terrible tenant has allegedly struck again.
Nightmare renter and convicted fraudster Nina Willis appeared before the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) on Wednesday, this time for not paying rent after moving into a house owned by Scarborough seniors. The Star has reported seven previous cases for properties Willis has been ordered out of since 2005.
Her landlords, Alan and Lloy-Ann Shields, allege Willis — who was sentenced to six months in jail and one year of probation in 2015 for defrauding two of her former landlords — is behind approximately $9,000 in her obligations, the equivalent of roughly six months’ rent.
Willis did not respond to repeated requests from the Star for comment at the hearing or to letters, phone calls and emails at the rental property.
During the hearing, Willis claimed she had the money ready but that her landlords did not pick it up and made it too difficult for her to transfer the funds.
She also alleged the landlords video-recorded her and abused her.
James G. McMaster, the adjudicator presiding over the case, chided Willis for her excuse, explaining it wasn’t the landlords’ responsibility to come and collect the money.
“Well, madam, they don’t have to come for them,” he said. “When I owe money to the bank, the bank doesn’t come to my front door . . .”
“No they don’t,” Willis replied. “But I’m not the bank.”
McMaster ultimately reserved his decision as to whether or not to evict Willis for failing to pay up.
The Shields, who denied Willis’s claims of hostile treatment to the Star, said their struggle began shortly after Willis moved into their Mossbank Dr. rental property in December 2014. Late payments, followed by none at all, soon followed. The recent retirees filed for an eviction with the LTB in August last year.
In total, the couple estimates the process has cost them over $30,000 in missed rent, legal fees and unpaid utilities. Lloy-Ann told the Star the entire situation is “absolutely horrible.”
“You say this is a free country and these people took it literally,” she said from Florida, where the couple is on vacation. The couple’s adult children attended Wednesday’s hearing in their absence.
“Literally my mom is in tears,” said their son, Ron. “My parents saved up for their retirement, not this.
“We are just fed up. We just want them out.”
The issues with Willis appear to have extended far beyond the rent, however.
Jason Evans, who has lived beside the Shields’ property for four years, told the Star he complained to police more than once after Willis engaged in verbal altercations with him and his family. Toronto Police confirmed officers attended the property “multiple times” in 2015 but did not say what for.
Alan and Lloy-Ann Shields also allege that Willis refuses to speak with them. “She won’t answer the door, won’t answer the telephone, won’t answer emails, not even a mailbox delivery,” Lloy-Ann said.
According to her, there was no reason to suspect Willis was suspicious when she first applied to rent the property. Further, Lloy-Ann alleges Willis identified herself as “Nay Lancelot” rather than her real name.
“I did all the reference checks and everyone said she was fine . . . I’m a (trusting) soul,” she said, adding she “did not think enough” to conduct a credit check.
Despite her history of stalling evictions, Willis’s most recent case was judged on its own merits. A tenant’s past run-ins with the LTB do not have any bearing on board decisions.
A spokeswoman for Social Justice Tribunals Ontario, a group of adjudi- cative bodies that includes the Landlord and Tenant Board, declined to comment before Wednesday’s hearing.
“Each case is unique,” she said in an emailed statement. “People have to feel confident that when they come before an adjudicator, their case will be judged on its merits, the particular facts of the case and the law.”
Cases like the one the Shields are facing is one of the reasons why Progressive Conservative housing critic MPP Ernie Hardeman remains a staunch opponent of the Residential Tenancies Act, the provincial law that lays out the responsibilities of landlords and tenants.
The legislation, he said, requires a rewrite to account for “professional tenants” who exploit the rules meant to protect them from unfair evictions.
“Obviously there are people who have figured out . . . how to get into places and not pay,” he said. “Government legislation is allowing this to happen and the government should be stepping up to come up with a solution.”
Hardeman advocated for the creation of a public registry of unruly tenants and landlords two years ago after a Star investigation exposed how Willis — along with other problem tenants in the province — used legal loopholes to stall their evictions while continuing to live rent free at the expense of landlords. (Several Star articles have reported on Willis as a “tenant from hell” after landlords accused her of not paying rent, changing locks to keep landlords out, damaging property and more.)
Privacy laws kept landlords in the dark when vetting a future tenant. In Ontario, a renter or landlord’s track record — no matter how tainted — is sealed and kept secret.
Since then, Hardeman said “(the government) has done absolutely nothing to solve this problem.”
But change may be coming. As part of a provincial housing strategy announcement made earlier this week, the government said it plans to brainstorm different ways it can encourage smaller landlords to provide rental housing.