Category: Landlord/Tenant Page 5 of 8

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.

Landlords, Tenants, and Domestic Violence: Clarifying Privacy Issues

By Jennifer Koshan

On August 9, 2017

In Landlord/Tenant, Privacy, State Responses to Violence

By: Jennifer Koshan

PDF Version: Landlords, Tenants, and Domestic Violence: Clarifying Privacy Issues

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

A recent report written by Professor Lois Gander for the Centre for Public Legal Education Alberta (CPLEA) explores how landlords and property managers can play a part in responding to domestic violence. Domestic Violence: Roles of Landlords and Property Managers concludes that “some property managers and the landlords they represent go to considerable lengths to prevent, intervene, and support victims of domestic violence as much as they can” (at 7). This was the case even before Bill 204, the Residential Tenancies (Safer Spaces for Victims of Domestic Violence) Amendment Act, 2015, amended the Residential Tenancies Act, SA 2004 cR-17.1 (RTA), to allow victims of domestic violence to terminate their tenancies early without the usual penalties (for a post on Bill 204 see here). The report includes several recommendations to support landlords and property managers as front-line service providers in this context, including the development of training and resources. It also recommends that “further consideration should be given to ways that the law impedes or assists landlords in accommodating the needs of their tenants who are experiencing domestic violence” (at 9). Appendix F sets out several legal issues revealed by interviews with landlords and property managers, including uncertainty about: (1) the extent to which privacy laws constrain them from reporting domestic violence to tenants’ emergency contacts, guarantors and family members, (2) who is a tenant and how and when a guest or occupant acquires the rights and responsibilities of tenants, (3) the power of landlords to suspend or terminate tenancies for acts of domestic violence, (4) the power of landlords and tenants to change locks and bar access, (5) the ability of landlords to recover the cost of repairs for damages caused by tenants or their guests, and (6) the implications of different forms of no-contact orders for landlords and property managers (at 44-45). This post will address the first issue; I will comment later on issue 6 and Jonnette Watson Hamilton will discuss issues 2, 3, 4 and 5.

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.

“Abandoned Goods” Require Abandoned Premises or Expired/Terminated Tenancies Plus Vacated Premises

By Jonnette Watson Hamilton

On May 26, 2017

In Landlord/Tenant

By: Jonnette Watson Hamilton

PDF Version: “Abandoned Goods” Require Abandoned Premises or Expired/Terminated Tenancies Plus Vacated Premises

Cases Commented On: Wilderdijk-Streutker v Zhao, 2017 ABPC 24 (CanLII) and Shearer v Shields, 2017 ABPC 108 (CanLII)

A landlord can dispose of the belongings that a residential tenant has left behind at the rented premises if those belongings meet the definition of “abandoned goods” in section 31(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, SA 2004, c R-17.1. That section says “abandoned goods” are goods left at residential premises by a tenant who has either abandoned the premises or has vacated the premises after their tenancy has expired or been terminated. Two recent Provincial Court judgments discuss whether a tenant’s belongings were “abandoned goods” or not. In both judgments, the landlords were found to have acted rashly and the tenants were found to have not abandoned their belongings. However, only one of the judgments considers whether the belongings were “abandoned goods” by paying attention to the definition in section 31(1) of the Act. That definition requires that the focus be on the premises and the tenant’s legal relationship to those premises, and not on the belongings themselves.