Ontario’s Landlord and Tenant Board isn’t working for anyone, so how do the parties plan to fix it?
Landlord calls for quick evictions in cases where tenants stop paying
After losing more than $8,000 to a person he describes as “a professional tenant,” landlord Nicholas Sikatori wants politicians to fix Ontario’s “badly broken” Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB).
At the top of his list is allowing landlords to quickly evict tenants in clear cases of non-payment, avoiding what is now often a months-long process he said hurts both tenants and landlords.
“It’s easy to fix,” Sikatori told CBC News. “No rent, no stay. Landlords are leaving units empty because of the risk [of renting to bad tenants] right now.”
Sikatori endured a six-month ordeal to evict a tenant who stopped paying after the second month, intentionally delaying the legal eviction process, then demanded thousands of dollars in payment to leave.
It started last August when Sikatori bought an eight-unit apartment on Ross Street in St. Thomas, renting out a two-bedroom apartment to a man who receives a monthly stipend from the Ontario Works (OW) program.
Their arrangement was that the tenant’s $1,200 Ontario Works rent supplement was paid to Sikatori directly, with the tenant agreeing to cover the balance on the $1,800 monthly rent.
Sikatori said the man paid first and last month’s rent and also for September. After that, Sikatori said, his tenant didn’t make another payment. …[Continue Reading]