Toronto Renters Forum

with rents so hi these days I think that this article might be helpful to some;

What you need to know about living with roommates in Ontario

I saw this article on CBC about the ombudsmans's report

https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/ontario-ombudsman-report-landlord-tenant-board-1.6830181

Does anyone have a link to the actual report?

From the Financial Post:  Canada's biggest city challenged to confront its 'renoviction' problem


“rents in Ontario are increasing at the fastest year-over-year pace since the late 1980s, according to Statistics Canada data. Rent jumped 5.4 per cent in June from a year earlier, slower than the 5.6-per-cent gain posted in May, but otherwise the biggest increase since the fall of 1989.”

“‘REITS have caused our city to become commoditized,’ Toronto councillor Mike Layton said during a debate on Bond’s report on July 22, referring to real-estate investment trusts. ‘The door is wide open for ‘renovictions’ and we need to shut it. When the rent doubles, it’s a huge loss for our city,’ Layton continued.”

“In Ontario, landlord applications to evict tenants for reasons other than failing to pay rent increased by nearly 100 per cent between 2014 and 2020, while applications to raise rent on current tenants beyond what’s allowed under rent control rules rose by nearly 40 per cent, according to data from the Landlord and Tenant Board.”


https://financialpost.com/real-estate/the-renoviction-debate-comes-to-toronto-as-officials-call-for-stronger-rent-protections/wcm/9dc287e8-81fc-45ee-8d64-49d685c020e9/amp/

https://toronto.ctvnews.ca/ontario-increases-amount-landlords-can-raise-rent-by-highest-level-in-a-decade-1.5968069


CTV News reports:

"Ontario is more than doubling the maximum rate a landlord can raise a tenant's rent next year – marking the highest rent increase guideline in the province in a decade.

On Wednesday, the province announced Ontario’s rent increase guideline for 2023 is 2.5 per cent.

Previously, landlords were allowed to raise rent by 1.2 per cent in 2022, following a rent freeze that rolled out in 2020 to help Ontarians through the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The last time Ontario’s rent increase guidelines reached 2.5 per cent was in 2013."

Safe and Affordable Housing Now

The Ontario NDP Party has a Petition asking that the government implement several things that would help tenants' rights enormously:

https://www.jessicabellmpp.ca/housing

We the undersigned petition the Legislative Assembly of Ontario as follows:

• Reverse the recent elimination of rent control protections for new rental units.
• End Vacancy Decontrol: Landlords should not be able to increase rents to whatever amount they want when a tenant moves out.
• End Above the Guideline Increases: Repairs and maintenance are a landlord’s responsibility and they should pay for them.
• Strengthen the Residential Tenancies Act to protect tenants from reno-victions and illegal evictions.
  

Informative opinion from a lawyer:

https://www.markhabiblawyers.com/news/2021-the-year-of-the-rent-freeze

Quotes from this blog article:

The rent freeze does not mean landlords can't give notices in 2021. It just means that increases can't take effect in 2021. For example, a landlord could give a notice in September 2021 for a rent increase to take effect on January 1, 2022.

There are some ways that rents can be increased in 2021 despite the freeze.

Although the rent freeze is in effect for all of 2021, not all tenants will get a full 12 months of protection.

Hi everyone,

We recently forgot to bring our kids' toybox into our apartment - we left in out in the hallway.

Today we received a notice from our landlord saying that we are being fined $25 for "toybox in hallway", which the notice claims is a fire hazard.

Is this legal?

Note that my question is not about leaving things in the hallway, which wasn't our intention (this was a mistake), and might actually be a fire hazard.  I just want to know whether a landlord unilaterally impose a fine on a tenant like this?

- Katie