When Should Ontario Landlords Call the Police?

Intro: Police & Your Rental Property

Welcome to another episode of CRESI’s Ontario Landlord Series podcast. If you don’t know by now, CRESI is an acronym for Complete Real Estate Solutions and Investments, and it’s about being your complete solution for all of your real estate and investment needs. This podcast, again, is about making sure you’re getting the right information so you can always make an educated, informed decision for yourself with all the correct information to do so. Today, we’re going to talk about police involvement with your rental property.

and the tenants that live there. There are some misconceptions and some confusion around this and when we can call the police, what they can actually do, and what they need to be called for. The first thing I’m going to mention here is something that we’ve already done a full podcast on with Stonegate Legal Services, represented by Mr. Rob Di Lisi, a good friend of the show and a friend of mine.

So we’re bringing him back in today. We’re going to talk about police involvement. The first thing we’re going to start with, Rob, is what about tenants when they abandon their belongings and disappear without notice? Is that a time to get police involved, and how do we handle that situation?

Police Jurisdiction: What’s Beyond Their Scope

No — the problem is that a lot of landlords think the police are the end-all, so they always call the police, and, I’ll be careful how I say this, the police get annoyed, because these are what they call BS calls — I’m not going to say the word, but BS calls — because this is not in their jurisdiction. If you ever call the police for a landlord and tenant matter, they will tell you this is beyond our jurisdiction, we are here only to keep the peace, you need to go through the avenues of the Landlord and Tenant Board. So landlords need to stop calling the police every time there’s an incident. The only time you should really be calling the police is when there’s a domestic disturbance or a safety issue — then you can get the police involved. But if you’re talking about a tenant matter specifically, they will not get involved.

So like you were saying there, disturbing the peace, right? Excessive noise, parties, something like that, affecting neighbors as well as other tenants in the property. Obviously complaints like that would be one of the times you’re saying the police should be involved.

Noise Complaints & Disturbing the Peace

Yeah, absolutely. If there’s excessive noise, partying, disturbance, fighting, stuff like that — remember, they’re there to keep the safety of the tenants. We had an instance in one of our buildings where two tenants were going at it, and one was very scared of the other. Police were talked about and brought in, and we ended up being able to move him into a unit of ours down the road, so he was very happy that we solved that situation and they no longer had to be neighbors. Sometimes people just don’t seem to get along and live beside one another — it’s definitely one of the things with multi-tenant living.

Kev, can I add something if you don’t mind? Yeah. Since you brought that up — if you are going to call the police and there is some kind of disturbance, try to get a police report.

Because if you get a police report, there are notices you can give to the tenant to try to at least get an eviction, which would be for impaired safety or illegal acts, stuff like that. But it’s imperative that you have a police report, because if you just go to the board with just, “hey, they’re causing disturbances,” that’s not going to be enough. You need a police report.

Documentation: Getting Crucial Police Reports

It always comes back to documentation, right? Having something written down, and something coming from the police stating that they were there and how many times they’ve come, right? Imagine if you had to do this multiple times. Now, one of the things my wife always worries about when I’m dealing with different properties and going to speak to different tenants is that there could be some kind of danger involved.

I’ve seen some crazy things that happen in the news between landlords and tenants. One of the main reasons I tell people to have a property manager involved is that a third party is in between the two, relaying messages and not getting into any type of emotional, argumentative, or threatening exchange between a landlord and a tenant. So, say police get called, landlords go there and they’re feeling unsafe, they’re feeling threatened.

Do you have anything to add on that one? Yeah, I can. What you can do — and I see a lot of landlords doing this — is call 911.

Remember, 911 is an emergency line. So if you don’t feel safe going to the property, what you can do is request — and I want to emphasize the word “request” — a peace officer. You would call the division for that area and say, look, this is the situation, I’m requesting a peace officer to accompany me because I’ve had incidents in the past and this isn’t the safest building or area, whatever the case may be.

And they will sometimes set a time or date where a peace officer can be there with you. And if I can add, because I didn’t say this earlier — under the Courts of Justice Act, subsection 141(2), the police officer is only there to keep the peace. So they are not going to be doing any evictions.

I think that’s important to note, because a lot of landlords think the police do the evictions. The people who do the evictions are sheriffs, which are not police.

Eviction Reality Check: Police vs. Sheriffs

It’s not the police that come to vacate the property, right? If the tenant refuses to leave, it would be, like you just said, the sheriff, not the regular police. As I always say, you don’t know what you don’t know, and you only know what you know. That’s why we’re doing this — to make sure everybody gets the right information, so they know what they can and cannot do, and what solutions they may have for certain situations that come up.

So, intentional damage to the interior of the property — again, if there’s damage, this would come under safety or something similar, so that’s when the police would be called. You can call the police, but you have to be careful whether it’s going to be a criminal matter or an LTB matter. The LTB has applications you can put forward for damages, and for criminal matters like negligence or excessive damage, you can get the police involved.

I’ve never had the experience of police involvement, because most of the damage we see is considered more wear and tear, but I have trained police officers in Toronto, and they’ve told me that if there’s excessive damage, the police can get involved — but again, you have to prove it, you need to document it, you need the evidence, and then pursue that avenue.

Property Damage: Criminal vs. LTB Matters

I heard a story once where tenants got divorced and, leaving the property, made holes all throughout the drywall. Excessive damage, definitely done on purpose. Luckily, though, it was just drywall, so it was just costly to get it fixed. Let me comment on that, because I hear this a lot with regards to drywall — I guess you can get the police involved, but look, I’m an Italian guy, and I know that fixing drywall isn’t that bad.

It looks ugly. It shouldn’t be that expensive, depending on how bad it is, but drywall isn’t really a big deal to me. At least with my properties, I don’t see drywall as a very big deal. That’s just my comment.

So basically what we’re saying here, folks, is that police involvement is really just for their job, and that’s for something that is criminal — whether that’s drug dealing, some type of injustice to neighbors (whether in the same multifamily unit or a neighbor on the street in a single-family residence), disturbing the peace, any kind of threat, anything that’s a criminal act — that’s where you want to get the police involved. Most of the things people are thinking about when they want to call the police is probably going to be an LTB situation, where we have to go through the Landlord and Tenant Board and not the police.

As Rob said earlier, 911 is an emergency number. So if you’re feeling threatened and it’s an emergency, yes, call it — but if you’re going to the property and you feel threatened in advance, or you’re unsure about safety, call ahead and request an officer to join you. Rob, did you want to throw in anything else here?

I know this is a pretty cut-and-dry topic: police involvement, what they can really do, what their involvement with rentals looks like.

Roommate Situations: Special Legal Considerations

Yeah, there’s one last thing, Kevin, if you don’t mind. Let’s talk about roommates, because that’s a time when you can call the police. Say, for example, someone is renting out rooms in their house. It’s imperative to have a roommate agreement, because if a roommate shares a kitchen or bathroom with the landlord, that person is exempt from the Act.

I actually have the section here, if you don’t mind. I’m going to quote it — it’s sections 5 and 6 of the Act, which say that if you share a kitchen and bathroom, that person is exempt. So that means if you ever want that person out, you can’t go through the Landlord and Tenant Board — you’d have to call the police.

But if you call the police, you have to understand that not a lot of officers are trained in these circumstances. What you’d need to do is call the division and talk to the desk sergeant, explain that you have a roommate agreement, and that under the Act this person is not protected, and that the police are the only ones who can enforce it. That’s the last point I want to make, because a lot of people don’t know this either. It’s an important distinction.

Have something in writing — always, right? If it’s not written down, it’s very hard to prove something that was said verbally.

That’s for sure. I hope everybody listened to the end there, because that was a good nugget you shared with regards to roommates versus a tenant situation. There’s always a difference when they’re sharing kitchen and bath. It doesn’t matter under the RTA.

It comes down to whether it’s a roommate agreement. Let’s wrap this one up here, and hope that was informative enough for everybody about when they should and shouldn’t involve the police, and what an LTB matter is versus a criminal act. That’s really what this was for.

Thanks so much, Rob, as always, for joining us today. I hope you guys enjoyed the episode, and we’ll definitely talk to you soon. Bye for now.

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.

Hey everybody, thanks so much for joining us this week. I hope you enjoyed the episode. If you’re finding it informative and useful, make sure to like, subscribe, and share with a friend so we can keep getting the information out there to Ontario landlords. Keep on joining us — we’ll see you next time.