NEW WAIT TIMES TREND FOR THE LANDLORD AND TENANT BOARD: 250% INCREASE IN TIME TO HEAR A SIMPLE CASE!

The Affordable Housing Providers of Ontario [AHPO] provided a white paper in July to the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, with recommendations to improve the Landlord and Tenant Board. On October 28, 2019, AHPO representatives met with two officials from Minister Steve Clark’s office at the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing, in Toronto.

AHPO brought to the attention of the minister’s staff the most recent negative trend occurring in the Landlord and Tenant Board, waiting times to justice. According to the Landlord and Tenant Board’s website, it strives to achieve a service standard of 25 to 30 business days, depending on how complicated an application. In today’s climate, we’re seeing a wait time of six or more months before the tenant or the landlord can have an Adjudicator hear their case and another long waiting period to receive a decision.

“The Landlord and Tenant Board process is broken. It has lost its credibility to bring justice to both tenants and landlords in a timely manner and is quite frankly, outdated,” stated AHPO Chair, Mr. Ray Goulet.

For the fiscal year 2017-18, the Landlord and Tenant Board had 80,791 applications filed, of which 90 per cent were filed by landlords and 10 per cent by tenants, 72,711 and 8,080 respective. The bulk of the applications filed by landlords were for non payment of rent.

“If the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing were to automate simple applications for non payment of rent, it would elevate the bottleneck the board is experiencing and free its Adjudicators to hear more complicated applications by tenants and landlords,” Mr. Goulet adds, “and it will save the government more money and generate more taxable income from landlords!”

If the Ministry of Municipal Affairs and Housing chooses not to implement an automated process for simple applications, it will continue to experience huge delays, less apartments and homes on the market for rent, and pandemonium is possible by frustrated tenants and landlords.

“Minister Steve Clark needs to act now!” Mr. Goulet asserts.

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Contact:
Tricia Marshall
Affordable Housing Providers of Ontario, Steering Committee
705.845.5748

Background:
Affordable Housing Providers of Ontario is an alliance of presidents from Ontario landlords association. It came about a little more than one year ago, out of necessity. Landlords were unhappy with the broken Landlord and Tenant Board and the unfairness of the Residential Tenancies Act. These presidents, representing mostly small-sized landlords, heard and saw a system that was crushing the spirit of the small entrepreneur, taking away their livelihood, depleting their retirement savings and saw an increasingly large number of landlords walk away from the business (either sell, bankruptcy, or short-term – i.e., Airbnb rentals).

The Affordable Housing Providers of Ontario created a steering committee, chaired by Ray Goulet, Greater Sudbury Landlords Association It’s vision is to WORK WITH LANDLORDS, TENANTS, AND OUR GOVERNMENT for resolution to the broken system and to bring back balance of fairness into the Residential Tenancies Act.

Please share for all small landlords in Ontario!

MEDIA RELEASE For Immediate Release: Wednesday, November 20, 2019

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