Illegal Rent Charges

TET-92785-18 (Re), 2019 CanLII 89697 (ON LTB)

13. Pursuant to s. 116(1):

"A landlord shall not increase the rent charged to a tenant for a rental unit without first giving the tenant at least 90 days written notice of the landlord’s intention to do so."

14. There is no dispute that the notice required by s. 116(1) was not given here.

18. Pursuant to the Court of Appeal’s decision in Price v. Turnbull’s Grove Inc., 2007 ONCA 408', the deeming provisions in section 136 that make an illegal increase legal after one year do not apply where the rent increase is “void”. Rather the deeming provision only applies where the landlord has given 90 days written notice in advance; so for example, it would cover the situation where proper notice was given, but the amount set out for the increase is wrong.

19. The second problem with respect to the Landlord’s argument concerning s. 136(2) is that it explicitly states that the deeming provision does not apply where an application is filed within one year of the increase and the lawfulness of the increase is an issue in the application.

20. Here, the Landlords filed an application with the Board (in Board file TEL-92093-18) on June 15, 2018. The lawfulness of the rent increase was an issue in that application. In fact the Board’s order issued on July 24, 2018 explicitly states the increase the Landlords took in September of 2017 violated the Act and was unlawful. More importantly, the Tenant’s application here was filed within one year of the first illegal increase taking effect and explicitly raises the issue of the illegal rent increase, so s. 136(2) has no application whatsoever.