New rent repayment rules worry experts
Proposed changes could lead to flood of evictions, housing advocates warn
Renters may be subjected to “rubber stamp” evictions during the pandemic because of changes to repayment plan rules contained in proposed Ontario legislation, advocates say.
Bill 184, the Protecting Tenants and Strengthening Community Housing Act, was introduced mid-March, at the onset of the COVID-19 crisis that has resulted in unprecedented job losses and left thousands of tenants struggling to pay rent.
But with the bill approaching final approval and set to become law, housing advocates say they’re concerned about changes it makes to repayment plan rules.
Landlords have always been able to make informal repayment agreements with their tenants, but the new legislation will allow landlords to apply for an eviction order without a hearing if the tenant can’t meet the terms of a repayment agreement, said Dania Majid, a lawyer with the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.
Under current rules, even if tenants fail to meet the terms of those agreements, landlords must go to the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) for a hearing to obtain an eviction order — a drawn-out process that could take months as a result of delays caused by COVID-19.
“I think a rubber stamping approach to these evictions is a fear tenants and housing advocates have,” Majid said. “With the expected volumes of work that awaits the LTB when it reopens, we have heard government make references to this bill and need to clear the backlog.”
Majid also said that under the new rules landlords can offer repayment plans — whether the tenant wants to negotiate one or not — and use that
against a tenant at future hearings that could lead to eviction.
Current rules say landlords and tenants have to agree to negotiate repayment.
Advocates worry landlords will present “deliberately unaffordable” plans to tenants, knowing renters would likely default, Majid said. The tenant would then be unable to plead their case before the board — or they would face consequences at a future hearing.
The incentive for evictions,
said Majid, is that landlords can charge whatever they wish for empty units with vacancy rates still low.
Julie O’Driscoll, a spokesperson for the minister of municipal affairs and housing, Steve Clark, said in an emailed statement that the new rules are not a direct path to fast and uncontested evictions.
Landlords will still have to obtain what’s called a consent order from the board to allow them to skip the hearing process if a repayment plan is breached, O’Driscoll said.
But Majid said obtaining a consent order from the board is mostly administrative. The documents submitted wouldn’t show whether the repayment plan agreed to is reasonable because it doesn’t detail the tenant’s personal circumstances, including monthly income or changes in employment status.
O’Driscoll said the “legislation encourages repayment agreements so that evictions can be avoided” and that the need for board adjudicators to consider if a landlord has attempted to negotiate a repayment plan “reinforces to landlords the necessity of exploring repayment agreements and maintaining tenancies — rather than resorting to evictions.”
Tony Irwin, president and CEO of the Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario, said the new bill was meant to deal with delays at the board, which he said was “overwhelmed” with cases.
“We don’t want anybody to lose their housing, especially during a global pandemic,” said Irwin, whose organization has 2,200 members responsible for some 350,000 tenant households in Ontario.
At the outset of the pandemic the province imposed a moratorium on evictions, but not on applications made by landlords seeking to evict tenants for non-payment of rent.
Under the proposed legislation, the new rules for non-payment can apply retroactively to March 17.
Geordie Dent, who heads the Federation of Metro Toronto Tenants Associations, described the new legislation as “baffling.”
“The fact that they’re not helping tenants with money in any way is tough,” he said of the lack of specific financial aid from the provincial or federal governments for tenants unable to make rent.
Carly Tisdall, who lives in an apartment near Victoria Park and Danforth Avenues, said the bill has rattled tenants.
“I was amazed by how much it just changed the entire process of eviction,” said Tisdall, who has advocated for herself and her neighbours who are struggling to pay rent.
“Long term, this changes the way people in Ontario face eviction and I think the consequences are way more farreaching than what we can see in front of us right now,” she said.