Reasonableness (Re: Landlords Own Use)

HOL-02388-18 (Re), 2018 CanLII 111837 (ON LTB)

13. The obligation of the Board in considering applications for Landlord’s own use is to consider the circumstances of each case in relation to the criteria laid out by the leading cases of the Divisional Court:

Beljinac v. Salter 2001 CanLII 40231 (ON SCDC), (2001) O.J. No. 2792 (Div. Ct.), (“Salter”) when referring to Justice Steele’s reasons in Feeney v. Noble (1994), 19, O.R. (3d) (Div. Ct.), stated that:

“…the test of good faith is a genuine intention to occupy the premises and not the reasonableness of the landlord’s proposal.” And in the more recent decision of Fava v. Harrison, 2014 ONSC 3352 (CanLII) the Divisional Court, in considering this issue in the context of the Act found as follows:

“We accept, as reflected in Salter, supra, that the motives of the landlord in seeking possession of the property are largely irrelevant and that the only issue is whether the landlord has a genuine intent to reside in the property. However, that does not mean that the Board cannot consider the conduct and the motives of the landlord in order to draw inferences as to whether the landlord desires, in good faith, to occupy the property.”