Author: Jonnette Watson Hamilton Page 12 of 43

B.A. (Alta.), LL.B. (Dal.), LL.M. (Col.).
Professor Emerita.
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Landlords, Tenants, and Domestic Violence: Landlords’ Power to Terminate Residential Tenancies for Acts of Domestic Violence (and an Argument for Publicly-Accessible RTDRS Reasons for Decisions)

On September 8, 2017

In Landlord/Tenant, State Responses to Violence

By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: Landlords, Tenants, and Domestic Violence: Landlords’ Power to Terminate Residential Tenancies for Acts of Domestic Violence (and an Argument for Publicly-Accessible RTDRS Reasons for Decisions)

Report Commented On: Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta, Domestic Violence: Roles of Landlords and Property Managers

The report, Domestic Violence: Roles of Landlords and Property Managers (CPLEA report), a research project for the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA) under the lead of Professor Lois Gander, explores the role that landlords of private rental housing and their property managers can play in responding to domestic violence. Appendix F of the report identifies a number of legal issues that deter landlords and their agents from providing assistance because of the uncertainty in the law or the need for reform of the Residential Tenancies Act, SA 2004, c R-17.1 (RTA). This post addresses some of the termination issues identified by the landlords and property managers interviewed for the CPLEA report. Some landlords were uncertain about when they could terminate a tenancy for acts of domestic violence, and particularly when they could terminate it on only 24-hours notice (at 44). They also appeared to want more flexibility than is currently provided by the RTA. They wanted alternatives to termination of a tenancy, such as the ability to suspend a tenant’s tenancy, the ability to convert a tenancy that included a number of co-tenants into one with fewer tenants, and the ability to evict the abuser (at 44). None of those alternatives are currently available to Alberta landlords under the RTA, although some may be available to Alberta tenants and occupants under statutes such as the Protection Against Family Violence Act, RSA 2000, c P-27 (PAFVA), which Professor Jennifer Koshan will explore in a future post. Their absence in the RTA contributes to the incidence of homelessness experienced too often by victims of domestic violence: see CPLEA’s The Hidden Homeless: Residential Tenancies Issues of Victims of Domestic Violence, Final Report, June 2014.

Landlords, Tenants, and Domestic Violence: Who is a “Tenant” under the Residential Tenancies Act?

By Jonnette Watson Hamilton

On August 14, 2017

In Landlord/Tenant, State Responses to Violence

By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: Landlords, Tenants, and Domestic Violence: Who is a “Tenant” under the Residential Tenancies Act?

Report Commented On: Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta, Domestic Violence: Roles of Landlords and Property Managers, Final Report, March 2017

The report, Domestic Violence: Roles of Landlords and Property Managers, a research project for the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA) under the lead of Professor Lois Gander, explores the role that landlords and their property managers can play in responding to domestic violence. Appendix F of the report identifies a number of legal issues that deter landlords and their agents from providing assistance because of the uncertainty in the law or the need for reform of the Residential Tenancies Act, SA 2004, c R-17.1 (RTA). My colleague, Professor Jennifer Koshan, has already written about the privacy laws that stop landlords from getting help for victims of domestic violence in a preventative way: “Landlords, Tenants, and Domestic Violence: Clarifying Privacy Issues”. This post addresses the uncertainty that, perhaps surprisingly, surrounds the question of “Who is a tenant?” Who is a tenant is an important issue in the domestic violence context because it is tenants who have both rights — such as the right to gain access to the residential premises — and responsibilities — such as the duty to pay rent. A person needs the status of “tenant” under the RTA in order to have the rights and responsibilities set out in the RTA, which take precedence over anything set out in a written lease.

The Potential Impact of a Quebec Superior Court Challenge on Access to Justice in Alberta

By Jonnette Watson Hamilton

On August 3, 2017

In Access to Justice, Constitutional

By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: The Potential Impact of a Quebec Superior Court Challenge on Access to Justice in Alberta

Blog Post Commented On: “Clash of Courts”, Double Aspect Blog by Leonid Sirota, 23 July 2017

In his brief post entitled “Clash of Courts: Senior Superior Court judges are suing Québec over its provincial court’s jurisdiction; other provinces will be affected if they succeed,” Leonid Sirota focused his readers’ attention on a law suit brought by the Chief Justice, Senior Associate Chief Justice, and Associate Chief Justice of Quebec’s Superior Court (on behalf of all of the judges of that court), against the provincial government, noting that it has received little attention outside of Quebec, and certainly much less than it should. The judges of Quebec’s Superior Court are seeking a declaration that much of the jurisdiction of that province’s small claims court, the Court of Quebec, is unconstitutional because it violates section 96 of the Constitution Act, 1867 by granting the Court of Quebec exclusive jurisdiction to hear cases where the amount claimed is more than $10,000 and granting it powers of judicial review over provincial administrative tribunals. I agree that the case — a startling claim by a group of litigants that need to be taken seriously (even if their method for getting the issue before the courts, i.e., before themselves in the first instance, is unorthodox) — deserves to be noticed and that other provinces, including Alberta, will be affected if their claim is successful.

The Impact of a Dower Act Life Estate on the Valuation and Distribution of Intestate Estates

By Jonnette Watson Hamilton

On July 18, 2017

In Property, Wills and Estates

By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: The Impact of a Dower Act Life Estate on the Valuation and Distribution of Intestate Estates

Case Commented On: Estate of Johnson, Rick Allen (Re), 2017 ABQB 399 (CanLII)

The deceased, Rick Allen Johnson, died intestate–i.e., without a will–in February 2013. He was survived by a spouse and by two children of a previous marriage. The years of aggravation, frustration, hostilities and legal fees that is foretold by those two short sentences will be obvious to the many individuals who have found themselves in a similar situation. The particular issue in this case was how much of the deceased’s property his children inherited, if any, given the life estate in the deceased’s house granted to his surviving spouse by the Dower Act, RSA 2000, c D-15, and the preferential share of an intestate estate given to the surviving spouse by the Wills and Succession Act, SA 2010, c W-12.2. Specifically, the question was: Should the present value of the wife’s Dower Act life estate be deducted from the value of the deceased’s house for the purpose of distributing his estate between his surviving spouse and his children? Justice John W. Hopkins answered that question with a “no”, holding that the value of the deceased’s house for the purposes of the distribution of his estate under the Wills and Succession Act was the full value of the house, with no deduction for the life estate. I think his answer is wrong.

Abatement of Rent for Landlord’s Breach of the Minimum Housing and Health Standards

By Jonnette Watson Hamilton

On July 5, 2017

In Landlord/Tenant, Provincial Court

By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: Abatement of Rent for Landlord’s Breach of the Minimum Housing and Health Standards

Case Commented On: C.V. Benefits Inc. v Angus, 2017 ABPC 118 (CanLII)

This decision is important for two reasons. First, Assistant Chief Judge Jerry LeGrandeur awarded the tenant an abatement of her rent based on her landlord’s breach of section 16(c) of the Residential Tenancies Act, SA 2004, c R-17.1 (RTA). Section 16(c) requires landlords to ensure that rented premises “meet at least the minimum standards prescribed for housing premises under the Public Health Act and regulations.” Usually abatement of rent is granted for a landlord’s breach of section 16(b) of the RTA, which is the landlord’s promise that it will not “in any significant manner disturb the tenant’s possession or peaceful enjoyment of the premises.” Relying on section 16(b) suggests that a tenant must be unable to use or possess all or a part of the rented premises. Indeed, the landlord in this case argued that there needed to be an actual loss of physical use of all or part of the premises before a court could grant an abatement of rent. Tying the abatement of rent remedy to tenants’ inability to physically occupy the premises might seem appropriate if a tenant is forced out of possession by flooding or a bedbug infestation. However, tenants need to be able to be awarded an abatement of their rent when the problems are persistent but less serious breaches of minimum housing standards that do not drive them out of possession or entitle them to terminate their lease. Judge LeGrandeur’s decision made it clear that tenants can rely on section 16(c) when seeking abatement of their rent. Second, rather than calculating the amount of the abatement based on what percentage of the square footage of the rented premises the tenant could not use, Judge LeGrandeur adopted a more contextualized approach that seems much more appropriate.