Cases Considered: Botar v. Mainstreet Equity Corp., 2007 ABQB 608
PDF Version: A Tenant’s Right to Withhold Payment of Rent
This appeal illustrates how difficult it can be to evict a residential tenant who has not paid rent for the better part of a year. It also illustrates how well a self-represented litigant can do in the superior courts, the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench in this case.
Cases Considered: 581834 Alberta Ltd. v. Alberta (Gaming and Liquor Commission), 2007 ABCA 332, 581834 Alberta Ltd. v. Alberta (Gaming and Liquor Commission), 2006 ABQB 47
PDF Version: Sub-Tenant Woes When a Head Lease Disappears
This case illustrates the dangers for lawyers and their clients in changing the wording used in lawyers’ old precedents. Instead of using the standard formula of “by, from, or under” in a landlord’s covenant of quiet enjoyment, the innovative phrasing of “by, through, or under” was inserted. This allowed the lawyers for the tenant to make the first part of their argument in this appeal. It is cases such as this one that stymie the plain language movement in law.
