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Old 10-06-2021, 02:17 PM
Nark_Sinseeker Nark_Sinseeker is offline
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Post Tales from a lawfirm

Hi all,

I work as a lawyer here in Canada at a firm that specializes in residential tenancy law.

I'm a new call, so I've only been at it a year or so. I've got a bunch of wacky cases that make for fun stories with friends and family.

Thought I'd share some here when things are slow at the office. Let me know what you think!

*for confidentiality reasons, I remove or change sensitive details. All quotes are paraphrases, so don't take anything too literally.

** I cannot offer any legal advice, and none of this is intended to be proffered that way. But feel free to ask your law-related questions and I (or others) will try to see how the law may treat someone in your position!
  #2  
Old 10-06-2021, 02:18 PM
Nark_Sinseeker Nark_Sinseeker is offline
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An expensive text:

Here's the story of a single message that cost a landlord over $8,000.

So I get a call from a landlord (LL) - he's panicking cause he's being sued by a couple after he refused to rent to them. He says they're trying to sue him for $30,000 on human rights grounds, alleging he discriminated against them because they are a gay couple. LL's swearing up and down he's not a homophobe and he didn't refuse them because they were gay etc. He's frantic but I manage to calm him down and we talk about what happened.

He tells me he put a rent ad up on social media and got contacted by a prospective tenant (PT). PT says they are a family looking to rent, their last landlord was selling the house so they had to find a new place to rent. Their conversation went well until LL asked PT to send over some documents (usual proof of identity, proof of employment, pay stubs, past landlord references, all that). Once LL gets those docs, LL starts to vet them. Huge red flags start popping up:

- letter for proof of employment looks like it was made in notepad (no business logo, no contact number, generic name@gmail instead of @business etc.)
- pay stubs are just as bad. like someone googled 'payment receipt' and just typed it up in 5 mins. nothing formal about it.
- LL looks up the business address, its an apartment complex, no business building to be found. Even pays for an incorporation search, but nothing comes up. Can't find the business on google or linkedin, completely invisible.
- PT said it was a family applying, but didnt mention they were a lesbian couple. So LL gets identity docs of two women with two children, all of which have different last names (adopted kids? prior relationships? who knows)

So LL thinks "wait a minute, this isn't a family, these are just roommates! and they forged a bunch of these docs! Their last landlord must have had troubles and is probably evicting them... not worth the trouble."

At this point, LL should have just said that to PT. Or messaged them something like "thanks for sending the docs. unfortunately I am not able to rent to you at this time." The law is you can refuse to rent for no reason, but you cannot refuse to rent for a BAD reason. Tragically, LL decided to message them a bad reason.

LL says something like "oh, i did not realize you are not a family, sorry I only want to rent to a family." (You see, in LL's mind, roommates can split up any time and that can cause problems with collecting rent. A family is less likely to break apart and cause the same kind of problems. So LL wanted to avoid that potential headache.) Human rights law around here says you cannot refuse to rent based on family status. So LL did a no-no right away. But that no-no got turned into an 'oh shit' because the couple took it to mean something else:

PT messages back in a fury: "WHAT? you don't think A LESBIAN COUPLE IS A FAMILY? that is CRUEL and HIGHLY ILLEGAL. I will be suing you at the human rights tribunal! Everything was okay until you saw we were gay! ---"

LL doesn't even have time to respond. PT gets their friends in on it. LL is bombarded on social media by an army of LGBTQ+ allies. Turns into a huge deal. LL does the smart thing and stopped replying fearing it would only make matters worse (rightly so).

Couple days later, LL gets a nasty legal letter in the mail. "From the law office of Lawyer. LGBTQ+ individuals face discrimination every day! You are perpetuating a system of prejudice! Human rights! Pay us $30,000 AND take a course on discrimination selected by us AND pay our legal fees AND explicitly state how inclusive you are in your rental ads! or we'll SUE for even more!"

So after he tells me all this we schedule to connect later in the week and I go check out some recent human rights tribunal cases on discrimination to see how screwed LL is. This was my first human rights matter so I wasn't sure. I find 3-4 cases where the tribunal awarded SUBSTANTIAL damages to the discriminated. Judgement ranged from $15,000 - $45,000 depending on how bad the facts were.

Relatively speaking, his situation wasn't so bad. Some of the caselaw involved landlords locking the tenants out of the unit once they discovered they were gay; one particularly bad one had physically assaulted the tenants. LL's problem was just a misunderstanding and refusal to rent based on family status, nothing to do with PT being lesbians. Bad, but not so bad.

So I explain to him what the likely outcome is based on that research, suggest we engage in negotiation with the other side, and try to settle this matter cheap cause if it goes to a tribunal he could be on the hook for way more. He agrees and ultimately we settle things. The settlement + legal fees ended putting him out of pocket a little over $8k.

So far the most expensive text I've seen.
  #3  
Old 10-06-2021, 02:19 PM
Tunabros Tunabros is offline
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My uncle is a lawyer

he once told me he did drugs in college to stay up and study
  #4  
Old 10-06-2021, 02:43 PM
Gatordash Gatordash is offline
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What a moron.

Also it appears lawyers are WAY CHEAPER in Canada than the US. haha
  #5  
Old 10-06-2021, 03:18 PM
unsunghero unsunghero is offline
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Interesting story!

Yeah if you are a member of a protected class and are denied something for any reason, it almost seems worthwhile to sue if you are able

My Uncle is a residential home appraiser (has been for like 20+ years), and he’s a democrat because his daughter is a far-left democrat, and my uncle was more moderate until she converted him. Regardless, he did an appraisal for a particular home value for a black family that was accurate but like $200,000 less than what they were wanting

So they submitted a formal complaint to whoever oversees these appraisers saying that he under-appraised the home value because they were black. Now his job is on the line and he is getting a lot of grief from the company he works for because they just want stuff like this to go away as quietly as possible. The black family has zero proof or evidence that the home was appraised for far below its value, in fact the appraised value matched other homes in the area

None of that shit seems to matter. Also, there’s nothing my Uncle can do assuming he wins his case. Apparently to counter-sue for slander there would need to be demonstrable proof that the claim being made was false. So if they claimed that my Uncle gave them an unfair appraisal because he is not an actual appraiser, he could prove that claim as false by verifying his certification. But there is no easy way to prove that a claim of racism is false, to essentially prove that one is not a racist

So he either he loses his entire livelihood and this family gets awarded more than an extra $200,000 (plus any settlement) for being black, or else nothing happens. So basically if you are a protected class and are denied something, there is almost no reason to not submit a complaint of discrimination. Only good outcomes can come of it
  #6  
Old 10-06-2021, 03:20 PM
Boptop Boptop is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Gatordash [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
What a moron.

Also it appears lawyers are WAY CHEAPER in Canada than the US. haha
Yeah Canadian courts don't award the inflated damages that the US courts generally grant.
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Old 10-06-2021, 03:50 PM
Jibartik Jibartik is offline
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the TL[You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]R of op's last case

Canada is a dystopia and if you just say the wrong words you could end up in court.
  #8  
Old 10-06-2021, 03:53 PM
Nark_Sinseeker Nark_Sinseeker is offline
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Quote:
Originally Posted by unsunghero [You must be logged in to view images. Log in or Register.]
Interesting story!
Yeah if you are a member of a protected class and are denied something for any reason, it almost seems worthwhile to sue if you are able

... there is almost no reason to not submit a complaint of discrimination. Only good outcomes can come of it
This is a very unfortunate but true statement. My cousin joked that he (single and straight) should band up with a friend, claim to be a gay couple and apply for rentals broadly across the province until a landlord slips up then sue and collect settlement payouts.
  #9  
Old 10-06-2021, 04:41 PM
alphys alphys is offline
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Lol Canadian law.
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Old 10-06-2021, 05:03 PM
Nark_Sinseeker Nark_Sinseeker is offline
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Homeless homeowner:

Here's the story of a landlord who, because of the pandemic and emergency legislation, went homeless for over 16 months while her lowlife tenant stayed in her home rent free:

TLDR: landlord wanted to move in to her own home and lawfully evict the tenant. Tenant delays and doesn't pay rent for 16 months. landlord gets the home but not the rent.


I dubbed her 'suitcase lady' (SL) because she literally lived out of a suitcase; couch surfing with friends and family until an order was issued. This is the saddest tale of how the law favors tenants in my province.

Bit of background on the law: Tenants here have what is called 'Security of Tenure'. That means they cannot be evicted except for a limited number of grounds. Unless the tenant commits a wrong (fails to pay rent, damages property, does illegal activity, etc) the landlord only has two options to lawfully evict. One option is if the landlord or family member requires the property to live in for at least 12 months.

I get a call one afternoon from a very soft-spoken, kind hearted woman. I could tell right away she was tired - like she was getting ready to tell the same story for the hundredth time. Her tone was a mix of wanting advice, but also needing someone to talk to. I was happy to listen.

She explained that she had just gone through a nasty divorce, and as part of the settlement had to sell her matrimonial home and split the proceeds with her now ex-husband. She owned a property in the city that she wanted to move in to, but her Tenant (T) refused to leave.

She was very independent. She had called the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), the body who adjudicates these disputes, and they told her the steps she had to take to successfully evict T. As instructed, she gave the proper notice, filed the proper eviction forms, and impatiently waited for her hearing to be scheduled. Everything the law asks her to do in order to lawfully evict the tenant. She hoped it would go smoothly. She was wrong.

As soon as she gave notice to T, they stopped paying rent. T claimed that when the notice document was given, it terminated the tenancy, so he didn't have to pay rent despite continuing to live in the unit (??? what). SL calmly explained to T that he still had to pay rent but once the time period expired (60 days from when the notice is given), he would have to leave. T refused, and wanted to fight it in front of the tribunal. SL was taken aback, and called us for help.

Sidenote: This all happened in the midst of the pandemic. My province had just enacted an eviction moratorium (ban on enforcement of evictions). That ended up being a catalyst for disaster. Tenants decided this meant that if they couldn't get evicted, they didn't have to pay rent! (That was a busy couple of months at my firm, but more on that in another story) Too bad the banks weren't as forgiving. Imagine thousands of tenants failing to pay rent and hundreds of landlords still on the hook for their mortgages. Businesses shut down during the lockdowns, meaning streams of income were cut off... It was a mess. Anyways back to suitcase lady.

So I have to painfully explain to her that because of the pandemic, there's about a 4-6 month delay from the time of filing an application to when it actually gets scheduled. Then there's the delay at the hearings themselves, the time from judgement to when an order is issued, and then the delays in enforcement of the eviction order from the Sheriff. All in all, it could take upwards of 8 months (I thought I was being generous in the delay. turns out I severely underestimated how bad things were).

Months go by and not a word from the LTB about her hearing. I file a request to shorten the hearing, claiming the landlord is HOMELESS and this is an urgent matter. They agree and it gets scheduled a few weeks later. SL is annoyed at the delay but happy to have something firm. She has been homeless about 4 months at this point.

Then the day before the hearing, T says his wife has to go to hospital and needs to be there, so will miss the hearing. He asks it gets pushed back. Unfortunately due to something called the Principles of Natural Justice, T gets his wish and the hearing is pushed forward a few weeks. Note T is not paying rent this whole time, and SL is beyond humiliated for having to ask friends and family to sleep on their couch a little while longer. She's been storing all her stuff in a storage facility costing a few hundred each month too. All the while T is kicking back, warm and cozy, rent free, no worries in the world.

Get to the new hearing, and T requests that it be in french language. Since many provinces in Canada are bilingual, the tribunal has to oblige, and we get an english-french translator. That makes the hearing take FOREVER. Every sentence, the party needs to pause, let the translator say their thing, then continue.

Add to that the fact T is a sophisticated slimeball. He knows if he delays long enough the hearing will need part 2. He starts rambling on some nonsense at the speed of molasses - and it's obvious to everyone what he's doing. In the end, T gets his wish. It takes so long that they have to adjourn the matter to be re-heard at an unknown time in the future. We bring a motion to shorten again, but don't hear anything back. The new hearing ends up being scheduled another 3 months in the future.

Next hearing, and we come ready. We know T is going to delay as much as he can, give some BS sob story cause he has no argument in law, and so we actually give the adjudicator permission to ask all questions herself and hear all responses in french (despite our client only speaking english). Then there's no need for translation and we can speed through.

It works. The adjudicator gets visibly angry at T because every time she tries to ask a question, T blabbers about irrelevant nonsense. She ends up cutting him off enough times to keep him on track and finally she snaps mid-sentence and says "MISTER T, since the start of this you have not given me any reason why I should not grant this eviction. You have not paid rent in 13 months and claim it is because the tenancy is terminated. But since the last hearing it has been explained to you that this is wrong and illegal. If you do not give me a reason, I will have to end this hearing and issue my judgement."

Meanwhile SL and I are smirking behind our masks cause we were hoping the adjudicator's patience would run out. T had nothing to say, and literally just begged the adjudicator for some more time to find a new place to live. Absolute slimeball. I speak up and point out he has had more than a year to find somewhere, and despite SL sending him rental advertisements of places in the area with similar rent, he still hasn't chosen one. More time won't do anything.

And you know what T says to that? What this scumbag says? He says "Well, maybe if SL would assist me by giving me, I dont know, like $300 a month to help me find a new place, maybe I can ---" the adjudicator cuts him off again. No one can believe what just came out of his mouth. You've accrued over $10,000 in rent arrears, left this poor lady homeless and paying storage fees + mortgage, and now you want HER to subsidize YOUR rent?? Are you insane? "Hearing over, expect the judgement soon."

Unfortunately, "soon" doesn't mean anything. We waited over 6 weeks for the order to come out. All the while T still not paying rent. We file with the Sheriff to enforce the eviction, but the enforcement branch is delayed an average 8 weeks. All in all, T doesn't get out of the unit for over 16 months.

Part of the judgment was that he pay the arrears, but he's on disability support, which is government funding and immune from garnishment. So SL is pretty much out the rent + other costs permanently. She's grateful for my firm's help but extremely bitter about the process. She's since gone on to advocate in every avenue she can find to try and change these laws.

The legislation here is really skewed against landlords. You can't even charge interest on rent arrears, so if the tenant waits until the day before the sheriff knocks at the door to pay in full, there's no penalty and they can continue to live there. So why even pay?
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