Municipal Rental Licensing in Ontario: Kitchener's N13 Renovation License Fight

Introduction & Kevin’s Recap: Kitchener City Council N13 Licensing Meeting

[00:00:07] Kevin Breitner: Hey everybody, thanks for joining us again. It’s myself, Kevin Breitner with CRESI Property Management, Kayla Andrade with Ontario Landlord Watch and Front Lobby, and Mr. Robert Di Lisi — the man, the myth, the legend — from Stonegate Legal Services, who’s here as our legal professional and sometimes gets put on the spot. This is the show where we talk about everything and anything. Last night I attended, online, a Kitchener city council meeting where they were discussing the N13 and rent evictions, and their proposal for a new municipal bylaw on rental renovation licensing, since other cities and municipalities have already done this. We’re going to touch on what we learned yesterday, and get into the LTB delays as well.

To sum up what I heard: the issue is that the LTB still doesn’t have enough staff, so it’s backlogged and can’t deal with things quickly on either the landlord or the tenant side. Meanwhile, municipalities are talking about building a whole new program and hiring new employees. If every municipality hired three employees for this, that’s a ton of taxpayer dollars — versus the LTB simply adding staff and speeding up its own processes, so we don’t have these long delays on things like renovations that need vacant possession. The issue that kept coming up yesterday was landlords doing this in a shady, improper way, and people not understanding what their rights are and how the process works. The N13 form lays out a tenant’s rights and options — it doesn’t mean they’re automatically getting evicted, there’s a process. People not understanding how that works is part of the problem too, and everybody just needs proper information and education about their rights. We heard a few bad stories where you could tell a landlord wasn’t doing it for the right reasons, sadly — but there are plenty of legitimate reasons landlords need to do these renovations, and we don’t want to stop that. There are always going to be bad actors, but we can’t make things unfair for everyone because a few people aren’t doing it properly. So — how do we solve this? Kayla, I know you’re ready to go.

Kayla Fires Up: What Happened at the Council Meeting

[00:03:45] Kayla Andrade: I’ve been fired up since last night, six o’clock to ten o’clock, sitting through this council meeting and hearing all the delegations from tenant unions talking about landlords threatening to evict them for renovations. We heard tenants complain about maintenance on a heritage property that’s had property standards inspections regularly, worried about getting an N13 even though nobody had actually served one. We had elected officials sitting around the horseshoe who really understood that renovation licensing is just a cash grab — it doesn’t protect tenants, it doesn’t put bad actors in their place, and they struggled to understand that the province already has rules and processes in place to deal with both good and bad landlords, and with tenants understanding their rights. Kevin kicked butt last night — he came in like a bull in a china shop, points ready to go, knowing we only get five minutes to speak to council.

For anyone who wants to know: there’s a landlord license with two sections — one already approved through committee, another that’s going to be amended. What the renovation license would require is landlords providing contact information, a copy of their N13 notice and tenant information package, a building permit, a report from a qualified professional showing the work needs to be done and the tenant needs to be out, and a non-refundable licensing fee that can run up to about $650 per unit — and if the renovation is still ongoing, they want you to reapply for a renewal after a year. So there’s a lot of red tape, and the amendment side is trying to add more: if the tenant needs to vacate, they want landlords to pay for moving costs and any extra rent difference — say the tenant found somewhere temporary for $1,200 when they were paying $1,000, they want the landlord to cover that extra $200 a month because we’re inconveniencing them. Now, tenant insurance can often cover situations like this, where a landlord needs a tenant to vacate because of a fire or damage that was out of anyone’s control — that’s not the same as just wanting to renovate. Either way, it’s a cash grab, and we’re tired of it. This is why Robert being here is important — if you had an elected official in Kitchener listening right now, what would you tell them about renovation licensing duplicating rules and using taxpayer dollars to build a parallel system?

Rob’s Take: It’s a Cash Grab — The Province Already Has Rules

[00:07:26] Robert Di Lisi: I agree with you 110% — it’s a money grab, absolutely. Like you said, the province already has things in place. I don’t see how it benefits the tenant at all — in fact it creates more red tape. To be clear on any notice: the tenant doesn’t have to move out, they have the right to an adjudication, however long that takes, and at the adjudication the onus is on the landlord. You said it perfectly, Kayla — you have to have a permit, architectural plans, whatever shows good faith. If there’s a question about good faith, the board will deny the eviction. And if it’s legitimate, the tenant can apply to come back at the same rent — so their rent doesn’t go up. The argument is that they have to find somewhere else to go in the meantime, which is fair, but wouldn’t you say municipalities are almost promoting a “cash for keys” dynamic here, Kayla?

Municipalities Promoting Cash for Keys?

[00:08:32] Kayla Andrade: Hmm…

[00:08:34] Robert Di Lisi: Right — because they’re essentially saying, “well, you’re the big rich landlord, you should be giving this money so the tenant can go somewhere else.”

[00:08:41] Kevin Breitner: Exactly — everybody thinks landlords are millionaires. They don’t realize most landlords are regular people who’ve worked hard their whole lives, and instead of the stock market or other investments, chose real estate. I’ve said many times it’s the best investment in the world, but they’re the ones losing out because nothing’s being supported for them, while everyone depends on us to keep providing this housing.

[00:08:47] Kayla Andrade: Go on—

[00:09:15] Kevin Breitner: —and if this keeps up and investors stop buying in Ontario, our housing problem is going to get even worse.

Landlords Are Selling — The Real Cost of the Anti-Landlord Environment

[00:09:28] Robert Di Lisi: And it’s happening, just so you know — we have a high-volume office, and when I talk to landlords, every single one says they’re going to sell, that they’re done being a landlord because the government doesn’t care about them, so why should they keep investing in real estate?

[00:09:30] Kayla Andrade: It is happening. Robert, I want your expertise on something: if you don’t get a renovation license, the city can fine you — those fines range from $25,000 to $100,000, and they’re very extensive. Now, renovation evictions are provincial jurisdiction, so if a landlord says “fine, I’ll just go through the LTB and provide everything they need there,” but the tenant then complains to the city that the landlord didn’t get their license within seven days of the N13 — now the city can step in and fine the landlord, who’s going to argue the city is overstepping into provincial jurisdiction. To fight that fine, you have to go through the administrative penalty system, which the province only recently allowed municipalities to use for things like red-light tickets, and now they’re incorporating bylaws for it — rodents, nuisance lighting, anything can trigger a fine and force you into that administrative system, same as this renovation licensing. And the thing Robert and I both noticed is that these officials kept saying “well, it hasn’t been challenged yet” — meaning they know it can be challenged, but what landlord or organization has the money to challenge it, knowing you could be on the hook for the city’s legal costs too?

Fines of $25K–$100K for No Renovation License (And the Jurisdiction Battle)

[00:11:44] Robert Di Lisi: I agree with you — you’ve both said it from the beginning, it’s a cash grab. If the province already has these regulations, why are municipalities getting involved? It doesn’t make sense, and the answer is simple: every city is dying for extra tax revenue, so they’re looking for other ways to generate income, and I think that’s the real problem here.

[00:12:15] Kayla Andrade: A hundred percent — they lost their speeding cameras, and now it’s like we’re being rage-baited. Here’s Olivia Chow in Toronto saying “we’re going to do safe apartments, landlord licensing, hold you accountable for maintenance, and fine you if you don’t.” Now she’s saying, for landlords who don’t maintain their properties, the city will come in, do the work, and put it on your property taxes. So you want us to maintain our properties, but you’re also stopping us from asking tenants to vacate so we can actually do the work? My husband does renovations — you have to move a tenant’s belongings out of the living room to replace flooring, then sand, mud, and paint around them — I wouldn’t want that happening around me in my own home, let alone our tenants. So how are they expecting us to maintain properties unless the real goal is to watch them deteriorate into slum conditions, tenants calling bylaw, and costing taxpayers even more because now the city needs to hire more people to manage it? And meanwhile, if I already get an order from the city to do repairs, do I still need to apply for the renovation license too? You’re telling me to do it either way.

Olivia Chow’s Broad Brush: Painting All Landlords as Bad Actors

[00:13:46] Robert Di Lisi: Just so you know, Olivia Chow was referring to one particular building that’s been neglected since day one — and she’s painting a broad brush over all landlords, which isn’t right. I agree with you — how do you expect a landlord to fix up a property if you’re not giving them the tools to get tenants out to actually do the work?

[00:13:53] Kayla Andrade: Yeah.

[00:14:13] Robert Di Lisi: —if you’re not giving me the tools to get them out to fix the problem.

[00:14:17] Kayla Andrade: Yep. And if you Google “number one bad landlord,” it’s Toronto Community Housing. This is part of the exemption problem too — even this Kitchener bylaw exempts government housing, non-profits, and landlords receiving government subsidies. There are rules for everyone else, but not for them. Where do we draw the line and tell the province to wake up — their municipalities are making them look bad, and they need to put them in their own lane.

[00:14:53] Robert Di Lisi: Yeah, I agree with you.

[00:14:55] Kayla Andrade: I get so passionate about this. I only found out about this meeting on Thursday, and I get fired up because I’m tired of the political theater. There’s an election coming in October — these tenant unions show up flashing “we have 190,000 members” from a petition campaign against Doug Ford or whoever, and they use that at the municipal level because they couldn’t get it done provincially. But they’re doing a very good job of showing up in droves — thirty people were at Kitchener city hall last night — while our landlords are mostly watching online, a little scared to show up in person.

[00:15:52] Robert Di Lisi: Welcome to the—

Real Stories: Flooring Disputes, Matching Problems & LTB Outcomes

[00:15:53] Kevin Breitner: In the last five years, we’ve had to deal with two N13 situations, and Stonegate helped our clients through both. Both were demolitions of single-family homes that were in such poor repair they needed a full teardown or major renovation — we took down single-family homes and put up multifamily, adding housing, not removing it. Whenever we’ve delivered an N13, N12, or N11, Stonegate’s been involved to make sure it’s done legally and properly, so tenants and landlords both understand what’s going on. We’ve also had a flooring situation where the tenant didn’t have to vacate — but our workers had to move furniture, we told them to remove anything fragile themselves, and something got damaged when our crew moved a dresser or couch to get to half the floor. Now it’s our fault, even though the tenant didn’t remove it like we asked.

[00:17:38] Robert Di Lisi: Let me guess — it’s worth a million dollars.

[00:17:49] Kayla Andrade: Yeah, you shouldn’t have—

[00:17:52] Robert Di Lisi: Sorry to interrupt, Kayla — is this the one you tried to map?

[00:17:55] Kevin Breitner: We couldn’t match the floor, and you said if we just patched that one area in a different shade, they could fight it as not being aesthetically pleasing anymore, even though it was still functional.

[00:18:09] Robert Di Lisi: That includes cracks too, just so you know — settlement cracks in the walls. A tenant can complain about that, believe it or not.

[00:18:19] Kayla Andrade: What? Have you seen a ruling where the adjudicator actually awarded something for that?

[00:18:27] Robert Di Lisi: Yeah — the landlord had to fix the walls even though it wasn’t structural, just settlement cracks. What the tenant really wanted was a new paint job.

[00:18:41] Kayla Andrade: Yeah, I’ve seen it.

[00:18:46] Kevin Breitner: With the flooring, if we’d just replaced it, the LTB ordered the tenant to pay just over $1,000 for the issue, but the whole floor cost us five grand. The $1,000 would have covered that small area, but we couldn’t match it perfectly because the flooring was ten years old.

[00:19:12] Robert Di Lisi: And the LTB doesn’t care about that.

[00:19:15] Kayla Andrade: And think about the damage claims tenants make against contractors — landlords practically need body cameras on their crews now. And some tenants are just struggling to let you in — you have to give 24 hours’ written notice, then wait until they’re home with their dogs at five o’clock, when your contractors need to get other jobs done too. This comes down to elected officials who aren’t in this industry thinking it’s simple — you want it safe and habitable, but we have aging infrastructure, no end-term lease, and we have to give an N13 when there’s an emergency with electrical, plumbing, mold, or foundation cracks.

The Elected Official Who Got an LTB Order on Her Own Property

[00:21:15] Robert Di Lisi: There’s an elected official who owns a house in Hamilton that got an LTB order against her — did you see that?

[00:21:23] Kevin Breitner: Yeah, that’s how—

[00:21:24] Kayla Andrade: That went viral.

[00:21:26] Robert Di Lisi: Right — that proves your point, that they don’t understand any of this until it affects them personally, and then suddenly they want changes.

[00:21:36] Kayla Andrade: And you know, with Bill 60, we were saying, “if you’re a good tenant, this isn’t going to impact you” — that’s what these tenant unions say too, that if you’re a good landlord doing renovations in good faith, it won’t affect you. But money doesn’t grow on trees, and there are emergency situations where we do need a tenant to vacate, and the municipalities know this — that’s why we call it a cash grab. They know they want a piece of that pie, and they make it look like landlords are the problem — pointing to a 75% decrease in evictions in Hamilton, when we’re talking about over 80,000 applications backlogged at the LTB, versus thirteen fines under $3,000 handed out — and Kitchener wants to spend close to half a million dollars building a program that already exists.

What SHOULD the System Look Like? Kayla’s Policy Wishlist

[00:21:56] Robert Di Lisi: I have a question for you, if you don’t mind, since everyone watching knows you’re well versed — what would be a good system for both landlords and tenants? Kevin, chime in too.

[00:22:11] Kevin Breitner: I’m gonna—

[00:22:14] Kayla Andrade: First: we have Bill 97, which has passed but hasn’t all been proclaimed yet — we need to push the province to proclaim it, to put consequences in place for bad landlords misusing N13s and not letting tenants move back in at the same rate. Second: we need to get municipal and regional levels communicating with the provincial level about our real struggles — we need more adjudicators at the LTB to hear these applications faster, since tenants stay in the unit through the entire process before a hearing even happens. I’d like to see an automatic AGI, an above-guideline rent increase, after an N13, since landlords are putting real money into renovations that tenants ultimately benefit from — I don’t think tenants should move back in at the same rate. Bill 97 does require tenants to give the landlord their contact information and location during a renovation, and requires updates on how the renovation is progressing; tenants also have up to two years to file a dispute if a landlord acted unlawfully — and if you catch a landlord doing that, hold them accountable. But landlords also need to be able to raise rent to cover the capital expenditures an N13 requires. If we compound an automatic AGI with the N13 process instead of a separate hearing, that starts to make it fair for both parties. That’s off the top of my head — a roundtable discussion could bring out more. But I’m tired of elected officials vilifying landlords and pitting landlords against tenants, when we’re really advocating for the good tenants who pay on time and treat the place like their own. There are tenants who want to abuse the system too, and people say landlords shouldn’t profit off a human right — well, if housing is a human right, why is it taxed like alcohol and cigarettes?

[00:25:06] Robert Di Lisi: Yep. What about you, Kevin — what are your thoughts? I see you writing things down.

Kevin’s Ideas: Mandatory Tenant Insurance, ODSP Direct to Landlords, Property Manager Regulation

[00:25:13] Kevin Breitner: I’ll go through these in no particular order, since they came to me differently as we talked. First, corporations and everyday landlords are completely different and should be treated differently — the apartment building with 108 units that gave N13s to 61 of those units for stack repair and plumbing, all at once with no clear order, doesn’t make sense to me. I honestly agree that looked like an attempt to clear out lower-paying tenants from an older building. Corporations, large apartment buildings, and small single-family landlords need different rules. Second, mandatory tenant insurance — I have to pay car insurance and have never claimed on it, but I still have to carry it, so tenants should have to carry insurance too. We require proof of tenant insurance with liability coverage before we hand over keys, but once they’re in, they can cancel it and there’s nothing we can do. We had a property where a crazy rainstorm took part of the roof off and water got into the house — the tenant had let their insurance lapse, and with a newborn, they said they couldn’t afford a hotel, when their own policy would have covered it if they’d kept it. Now we’re the bad guys for having to fix the water damage while trying not to have workers cutting and dusting around a baby.

Third, non-payment of rent should be dealt with a lot faster — if it were, a lot of other things would resolve better too, since some tenants know they can take advantage of the delay. Fourth, regulate the property manager industry — there are a lot of companies out there that shouldn’t be operating the way they do. Fifth, educate landlords and industry professionals more, since many don’t understand what they’ve gotten into — they treat it like a stock market investment they can ignore, but you can’t do that with real estate; you have to be involved, or have someone like me handle it. Last, housing assistance money — ODSP, Ontario Works — should be out of the recipient’s control when it’s meant for housing. If taxpayers are funding that assistance for housing, there’s no reason it shouldn’t go directly to the landlord, since if someone has a housing-related financial problem, they likely have other financial pressures pulling that money elsewhere too. These aren’t complicated ideas — I think a lot of it is just common sense.

Rob Weighs In: The Tenant Insurance Argument & ODSP Self-Direction

[00:29:06] Robert Di Lisi: Right, and — well, I have to be careful here. I agree with most of what you’re saying. On tenant insurance, I’d push back a little: you’re asking them to pay more money on top of rent. I agree there’s a benefit to tenant insurance — I had an incident where a tenant’s policy covered a hotel and even an Airbnb for up to three weeks, and luckily we only needed one week. On ODSP and Ontario Works, I think the reason the government lets recipients self-direct is to try to build responsibility so they eventually come off the system — though I can see in Kevin’s face that it doesn’t always work that way, so I’m being careful how I say this.

[00:30:27] Kayla Andrade: You have to be careful — I don’t. Deep down, we do need rental payments to go directly to landlords, but our social services also need to make sure the money is actually going to the real landlord, not “Joe Blow,” while assuming the tenant’s rent is covered. They say they want tenants to be responsible and make sure their rental payment history gets reported to the landlord.

[00:30:32] Robert Di Lisi: Go ahead.

[00:30:56] Kayla Andrade: —but we’re seeing a lot of fraudulent activity with OW and ODSP right now, and tenants who still aren’t paying their landlord. They become delinquent — I encourage all landlords, whether the tenant’s on assistance or not, to report them to Front Lobby. Then they tap into government programs like rent banks to get their arrears paid to avoid eviction, which is great in theory, but if the tenancy isn’t viable, the landlord has to go back to the LTB again after the program already paid out — I’ve seen $10,000 paid out, and the tenant was back in arrears within five months. So you really have to ask whether a tenancy can be sustained before pushing taxpayer money into it.

The Rent Bank Loophole: $5,000–$10,000, Reset Every Year

[00:32:30] Robert Di Lisi: I’m glad you mentioned that, because a friend of mine who used to work for us now works for a rent bank. He told me there are two programs — for Toronto and Kitchener, tenants can apply for $5,000 from the rent bank, and if it exceeds that, there’s another program, one federal and one municipal, and they can do this every year.

[00:33:03] Kayla Andrade: I thought it was every two years — a mix of municipal and regional funding. They also require the tenant to come up with some of their own funds, usually from OW or ODSP. There’s also a version that’s forgivable and one that has to be repaid. It depends on whether the tenant qualifies — but you can lead a horse to water, you can’t make it drink. We tell tenants, “here’s your N4, try to get rent relief to stay housed,” but if they don’t follow through, we still have to show the adjudicator we did everything in our power to work out a payment plan. That’s where our adjudicators end up making small landlords into an unpaid social agency for the government.

Unqualified Politicians Making Housing Decisions

[00:34:14] Robert Di Lisi: [agreeing] Well—

[00:34:28] Kayla Andrade: [continuing] —and this is a whole ecosystem, not just about landlords — it’s about how government housing manages its own supply, since there’s a lot of fraud there too, and how they mismanage the funding that comes down from the province.

[00:34:47] Robert Di Lisi: No objection there.

[00:34:49] Kevin Breitner: I think with politics in general, sadly, the people making decisions aren’t involved in the industry they’re regulating. I hope they’re doing what they think is best for the masses, but what’s good for one group isn’t always good for another — we’re all different, with different needs.

[00:35:20] Robert Di Lisi: Since you brought up putting the right people in power — look at two current ministers. The Minister of Public Safety and the Minister of Immigration are both, in my opinion, doing a poor job because they don’t know the industry. I agree with you, Kevin — they should have real knowledge of the industry they’re overseeing.

[00:35:52] Kayla Andrade: Even at the federal level with these appointments.

[00:35:54] Robert Di Lisi: That’s correct — if they can’t get it right federally, forget municipal, unless someone like Kayla runs for office.

[00:36:06] Kayla Andrade: I’d get divorced over that — we’d rather stay behind the scenes. But you’re right, Kevin, when I watch some of these elected officials, I see it’s about appeasing special interest groups to look good, kowtowing to whoever will make them look like they’re helping vulnerable people, without realizing it’s unfair to landlords, and taxpayers aren’t paying attention to the decisions being made in their name. It’s their job to get their name in lights and look like they represent their constituents. That’s why we’re trying to educate our members on which councillors are worth supporting, how to campaign for them, and how to encourage people to run against the councillors we don’t want — because with 444 municipalities in Ontario, there’s only one of me, and we need leaders in this industry to help us organize against a council, or tenant advocacy groups, trying to overstep provincial authority.

Kitchener Delays Licensing Vote Until After October Election — Proof It’s Political

[00:38:11] Kevin Breitner: Last night they said they’re delaying the decision on this from June to September, after the election in the fall — which tells you they’re using this as a political chess piece. If this were really the best thing for the city, it shouldn’t matter who’s running the city when it passes — it should just get done.

[00:38:38] Kayla Andrade: Same thing happened with our landlords in Cambridge — the city updated its bylaw, added fines, and talked about entering tenants’ homes to inspect properties without a warrant. I pushed back — you need to give notice, you need a warrant — and they said it’s just the exterior, but they were folding that into the administrative penalty system. We have a landlord in Chatham dealing with cockroaches — he sprayed twice, and 21 days after the second treatment, the city fined him $2,500, not because they came in and did the work, just because he had cockroaches. That’s why Cambridge’s “zero rodents, zero insects” bylaw is going to be a problem — bylaw officers can fine a landlord even while they’re actively mitigating the issue.

Cambridge Bylaw Update: Warrantless Inspections & Cockroach Fines

[00:39:49] Robert Di Lisi: Even if you’re actively mitigating it?

[00:39:53] Kayla Andrade: Yes — it’ll be up to the bylaw officer’s discretion. The city is positioning itself as judge and jury on a lot of these issues, when they should be managing their own government housing units and staying out of the private sector — we can’t go to the city and say “my tenant stopped paying rent” or “my tenant smashed a window, get them out.” So why are tenants getting special treatment from municipalities just because they’re tenants? Our landlords are leaving because of all these added restrictions — tenants now have more rights to the property than the landlord does — and now we’re seeing municipalities pile on with bylaws, administrative penalties, renovation licensing, and even forcing landlords in Hamilton to provide air conditioning. If you’re watching, share this video, put your comments down — your voice matters. I was thanked by some Kitchener councillors for bringing landlords to that meeting; the meeting before ours had zero landlords show up. We complain online, but we’re not showing up at the municipal or provincial level — you need to write your MPP, send letters to the editor, tell them what’s happening. If we don’t support small landlord associations, taxpayers are going to pay a lot more — not just to build, manage, and subsidize housing, but to hire more municipal workers to manage properties, on top of a system that already got over $71 million to manage housing disputes. So you’ve got to ship up or ship out.

Kevin’s Call to Action: Join the Movement, Show Up, Invest in Ontario

[00:42:17] Kevin Breitner: Yes — share this, tell your landlord friends and colleagues to join us and get involved. Join the Ontario Landlord Watch Facebook group. We’re also building a community for investors, with education, information, and local meetups, whether you’re in Sudbury, Oakville, Windsor, or Timbuktu — it doesn’t matter, we’re going to build this out. We want to know where you are so we can advocate for you, educate you, and connect you to opportunities so you keep investing in Ontario and help fix our housing struggles — and hopefully turn a few bucks doing it. With everything going on, cash flow is hard, and these changes are going to make it even harder to stay profitable, even though tenants think we’re all making millions every month. Rob, this came up yesterday and I don’t know for sure — do tenants pay property tax through their rent?

Do Tenants Pay Property Tax Through Rent? (The McDonald’s Argument)

[00:43:24] Robert Di Lisi: No — property taxes are paid by the landlord. You could argue part of the rent effectively goes toward the property taxes, but no, that’s separate — it’s the landlord’s responsibility, and if a tenant doesn’t pay, the landlord still has to pay property taxes regardless.

[00:43:44] Kevin Breitner: One tenant said yesterday that because they pay rent, they should have just as strong a voice as landlords who pay property tax, since they’re indirectly paying it too.

[00:43:56] Robert Di Lisi: I actually had a tenant once tell me that because he’d been paying rent for so long, he should be considered an owner. My response was: if you buy Big Macs at McDonald’s for 30 years, that doesn’t make you an owner of McDonald’s — you’re being supplied a service. That tenant is not an owner; they might feel like one, but there are duties and responsibilities on both sides. Sometimes it feels tilted toward the tenant, but if you actually read the RTA, I still think it’s fair overall — the real problem is getting to the board. It can take 30 to 60 days just to get an order, then you have to go to the sheriff to enforce it — even with Bill 60, you’re still looking at four to six months to get a non-paying tenant out.

LTB Chaos: Adjudicators Scared to Rule, ChatGPT Evidence, and Human Rights Delays

[00:45:08] Kayla Andrade: I was giving you a shout-out there, because right now I’m hearing from landlords that tenants are uploading huge amounts of evidence generated with ChatGPT, and adjudicators are adjourning hearings just to give the tenant time to organize it. In one case, a tenant filed a harassment complaint with the LTB and Ontario Human Rights against a landlord who is clearly not the harassing type, and even though the underlying issue was simple non-payment of rent, the adjudicator said “I’m not touching this” because of the human rights filing — they’re scared to rule.

[00:46:57] Robert Di Lisi: Remember, that’s Section 83 — there’s discretion to deny or extend, but an adjudicator isn’t a legal professional, they’re meant to be a layperson, and if they hear something they’re uncomfortable with, they’ll say “I’m not going to touch it.” And yes, we’re seeing ChatGPT-generated material show up in these proceedings now too.

Front Lobby Landlord Assist: How It Can Help (And How Tenants Are Abusing It)

[00:47:23] Kayla Andrade: And it’s great for landlords too, don’t get me wrong — a lot of landlords can compile their evidence for the LTB through tools like Front Lobby Landlord Assist and have it all ready to go, which is genuinely useful. But tenants are starting to abuse that same kind of tool. One tip before we wrap up, since we only have Robert for a little longer: we’re seeing a pattern where a landlord wants to move into a property because the market isn’t cash flowing anymore, so they serve a personal-use application — and the tenant offers to pay more money just to buy another year. If the landlord accepts, or even just entertains it, that can later be treated as bad faith. So the tenant stays the full year, doesn’t have to pay the increase they offered, and there are a lot of loopholes like this happening.

The N12 Trap: Tenants Offering More Money = Potential Bad Faith Finding

[00:48:48] Kevin Breitner: There are private groups out there talking to tenants about exactly how to do this — how to demand more money through an N13, treating it almost like a cash-for-keys situation. We’re up against time today, sadly, so we do have to cut this shorter than we’d like when it was going as well as it was.

[00:49:09] Kayla Andrade: I’m sorry we’re running over, Robert, but guys — I need you to start keeping a paralegal like Robert in your back pocket. You need someone ready to go who’s been eating and breathing the LTB as long as I’ve been an advocate, fighting for landlords and for the justice of the system. Connect with him, follow his social media — we’ll get his links in the show notes. I love being part of this show because of these two gentlemen. Thank you, Kevin, and your staff, for putting on this educational, entertaining, non-legal-advice show. I’d encourage everyone to join the advocacy work I’m doing as an Ontario landlord myself for over 24 years, and tune in to my show every Thursday on YouTube.

April 9th Oakville Investor Meetup Announcement + Wrap-Up

[00:50:09] Kevin Breitner: And we mentioned the CRESI Investor Network meetups happening across the province — April 9th in Oakville, right on the Mississauga-Oakville border, 2020 Winston Park Drive. Reach out to us for more information, please join us in person — it’s a Thursday, so Kayla’s Unfiltered Show will actually be filmed live on site, so come tell stories and have some fun with us. This is a group of landlords who want to help educate and build a community so we’re stronger together, and hopefully one day balance the scales a bit more for everybody. Thanks so much for your time and for listening — Kayla, Rob, thanks as always for joining and sharing your thoughts, wisdom, and experience. Until next time, cheers.

Please remember, while we are professionals, this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only. The advice shared may not apply to your unique situation. Always seek personalized advice from a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.