Karen Andrews

The appellants appealed a Landlord and Tenant Board review decision that evicted the appellant wife from her rental unit.

The husband, the sole named tenant, vacated the unit following a domestic violence incident and later submitted a notice of termination.

The Board initially set aside an ex parte eviction order, finding the wife was a tenant, but a subsequent review decision overturned this and ordered eviction.

The Divisional Court allowed the appeal, finding the Board erred in conducting a review without a serious error in the initial decision.

Furthermore, the court held that under s. 3(2) of O. Reg. 516/06, the wife automatically became a tenant when her husband vacated the unit, and his subsequent notice could not terminate her tenancy.

The appellants, ten tenants of a mobile home park, appealed three Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) decisions allowing the landlord's application to evict them to convert the property to non-residential use.

The tenants argued the LTB erred in law regarding the sufficiency of the N13 notices, the test for good faith, and the consideration of relief from eviction under s. 83 of the Residential Tenancies Act.

The Divisional Court found no errors of law, holding that the notices provided sufficient detail, the LTB correctly assessed the landlord's good faith intention to convert the land use, and the LTB adequately considered the tenants' circumstances before granting the eviction with a delayed enforcement.

The appeal was dismissed.

The tenant appealed a Landlord and Tenant Board decision ordering her eviction based on an N12 notice for landlord's own use.

The tenant argued the Board erred by allowing the application to proceed after the landlord who served the notice died, by amending the application to name the landlord's estate, and by proceeding despite the landlord's failure to disclose a previous N12 notice.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the landlord's death did not invalidate the good faith intention present when the notice was served, the estate was properly named, and the Board had discretion to amend the application to include the previously undisclosed notice without prejudicing the tenant.

The proposed intervener, Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario (ACTO), brought a motion for leave to intervene as a friend of the court in an appeal concerning an alleged illegal eviction.

The landlords opposed the motion, arguing it was a private dispute.

The court granted the motion, finding that ACTO had a real, substantial, and identifiable interest in the subject matter and could provide a useful and distinct perspective on the interpretation of the Residential Tenancies Act, particularly regarding the remedies available for illegal evictions.

The landlord served the tenants with a notice of termination for a purchaser's own use.

The tenants exercised their statutory right not to vacate, prompting the landlord to apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) for an eviction order.

The parties settled the matter at the LTB, agreeing to a termination date and compensation.

The landlord subsequently sued the tenants in Small Claims Court for damages caused by the delayed closing of the property sale, and the deputy judge awarded damages.

On appeal, the Divisional Court set aside the Small Claims Court decision, finding that the Residential Tenancies Act provides a complete code for evictions, the tenants had no obligation to notify the landlord of their intent to dispute the notice, and the LTB settlement resolved all issues arising from the tenancy.

Following the dismissal of the tenants' appeals from Landlord and Tenant Board orders terminating their tenancies, the successful landlord sought costs.

The landlord claimed $6,257.85 from each appellant on a partial indemnity basis.

Taking into account the appellants' expectations and the significant overlap of work on each appeal, the Divisional Court fixed costs at $3,500 against each tenant individually, all inclusive.

The tenants appealed a Landlord and Tenant Board decision requiring them to pay the landlord for electricity arrears.

The landlord had installed suite metering and, when the tenants refused to pay the provider directly, averaged their usage and added it to their rent.

The Divisional Court upheld the Board's decision, finding that the tenancy agreements requiring tenants to pay for electricity were not void for uncertainty.

The court also agreed that the landlord was entitled to increase the rent for a prescribed service under the Residential Tenancies Act, and that the agreements did not violate provisions prohibiting contracting out of the Act.

The appellants, residential tenants, appealed orders of the Landlord and Tenant Board terminating their tenancies and denying relief from eviction.

The tenants had been temporarily relocated to other units owned by the landlord during the redevelopment of their original building, pursuant to a s. 37 Planning Act agreement.

When the new building was ready, the tenants refused to vacate the temporary units.

The Board found this substantially interfered with the landlord's lawful rights.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeals, holding that the standard of review was reasonableness, the eviction notices were valid, and the Board reasonably concluded that the agreement to terminate the temporary tenancies did not violate s. 37(5) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006.

The tenant appealed an order of the Landlord and Tenant Board evicting her so the landlord could use the basement unit for storage related to her personal occupation of the rest of the house.

The tenant argued that storage did not constitute 'residential occupation' under s. 48(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, and that the Vice-Chair showed bias by initiating a review of a previous order.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the Board's interpretation of 'residential occupation' to be reasonable and concluding there was no reasonable apprehension of bias.

The Landlord and Tenant Board brought a motion to quash an application for judicial review filed by the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario.

The application sought to prohibit the Board from applying its rule 32, which gives adjudicators discretion to allow a legal representative to act as both an advocate and a witness.

The Divisional Court granted the motion to quash, finding it plain and obvious that the application would fail because procedural fairness must be assessed in the specific context of a case, not in a vacuum.

The tenants appealed a decision of the Landlord and Tenant Board regarding the landlord's implementation of smart metering for electricity.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding that the Board reasonably interpreted the Residential Tenancies Act in concluding that the landlord was entitled to increase rent for adding electricity as a prescribed service and that payments to an independent contractor were not illegal charges.

The court also held that the Board's findings on harassment and coercion were factual and raised no question of law.

The tenant appealed a decision of the Landlord and Tenant Board allowing the corporate landlord to terminate the tenancy for the occupation of the sole shareholder's mother.

The tenant argued the reasons were inadequate and that a corporate landlord could not rely on s. 48(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act for this purpose.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal, finding the reasons adequate and confirming that the definition of 'landlord' includes the sole shareholder of a corporate landlord, permitting eviction for the shareholder's parent.

The tenant appealed an order affirming his eviction by the Landlord and Tenant Board.

The landlord, a corporation, sought possession of the rental unit for the personal use of its sole shareholder.

The tenant argued that a corporation cannot require possession for personal use and that the corporate veil should not be pierced to benefit the landlord.

The Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal, holding that the sole shareholder, as the directing mind who permits occupancy, falls within the definition of 'landlord' under the Residential Tenancies Act.

The Court also found that the Board properly relied on s. 202 to disregard the separate corporate existence to ascertain the real substance of the transaction.

The landlord appealed a decision of the Landlord and Tenant Board that ordered it to cease transferring hydro payment obligations to the tenants.

Following the Board's decision, the Ontario Energy Board ruled that the landlord's activities were unauthorized under the Electricity Act.

The Divisional Court dismissed the appeal as moot, noting that any concerns about implementing smart sub-metering under the new rules should be addressed by applying to the Board for a variation of its order.

The appellant successfully avoided eviction in a private landlord and tenant dispute, rendering the appeal moot.

Although the appeal raised a potentially significant public interest issue regarding the publication of a young offender's identity under the Young Offenders Act, the court declined to exercise its discretion to hear the moot appeal.

The court noted the issue was not evasive of review and was unlikely to arise again between the same parties.

The appeal was quashed.