Shared Accommodations (With-Landlord)

Cowie v. Bindlish, 2010 ONSC 2628 (CanLII)

[1] Judgment is to issue allowing this appeal, setting aside the orders in appeal and remitting the application of the tenant to the Landlord and Tenant Board (“the board”) with the opinion of this court for a new hearing before a different member of the board pursuant to section 210 (4) (b) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, S.O. c. 17 (“the Act”). It is our opinion that section 5 (i) of the Act does not exempt the living accommodation which is the subject of the application of the tenant from the application of the Act. The parties may make written submissions with respect to costs by exchanging copies and delivering the submissions to the office of this court at Brampton within one month.

[3] The central issue in this appeal is whether the board had jurisdiction to consider the appellant’s first application. The board held that it did not and its decision was subsequently confirmed by the board, composed of a different member, in dismissing the appellant’s application for a review. This issue requires an interpretation of section 5 (i) of the Act which reads, in part, as follows; 5. This Act does not apply with respect to,

(i) living accommodation whose occupant or occupants are required to share a bathroom or kitchen facility with the owner, the owner’s spouse, child or parent or the spouse’s child or parent, and where the owner, spouse, child or parent lives in the building in which the living accommodation is located.

[4] The appellant does not dispute that living accommodation which is the subject of this appeal falls within the scope of section 5 (i). However, it is his position that the respondent, his landlord, did not “live in the building in which the living accommodation is located” at the time that he and the respondent entered into their tenancy agreement and, therefore, that the Act does apply to the room which he rented.

[16] It is my respectful view that neither view was a sufficient basis on which the board was entitled to decline jurisdiction. Both board members erred in law, albeit differently, in their respective interpretation of section 5 (i) of the Act and we must now interfere. The section explicitly creates an exemption from the general application of the Act only if the person in the category of the respondent “lives in the building in which the living accommodation is located”. That means that the respondent was required to live in the building at the time when she rented the room to the appellant in order for the exemption to apply. It was not sufficient that she merely intended to move in at some subsequent time. Nor was it sufficient that she actually did move in at a subsequent time.

[17] Any interpretation of section 5 (i) of the Act that would permit the respondent to unilaterally cause the board to be deprived of its jurisdiction to hear the appellant’s application by forming an intention in her own mind without communicating it to the appellant or by moving into the house at a later time would be contrary to the language of the section and the intention of the Legislature and would be grossly unfair. It would also effectively result in an unwarranted revision of the tenancy agreement that the parties had made.

[18] Any such interpretation would also, in my view, be inconsistent with the objectives of the Act as reflected in sections 1 and 3 (1) of the Act. Section 3 (1) of the Act sets out the application of the Act. It reads as follows;

3. (1) This Act applies with respect to rental units in residential complexes, despite any other Act and despite any agreement or waiver to the contrary.

Section 1 of the Act sets out the purposes of the Act. It reads as follows;

The purposes of the Act are to provide protection for residential tenants from unlawful rent increases and unlawful evictions, to establish a framework for the regulation of residential rents, to balance the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants and to provide for the adjudication of disputes and for other processes to informally resolve disputes.

[19] Other grounds of appeal relating to the conduct of the board hearings including the findings made and the sufficiency of the reasons given were also briefly argued by counsel for the appellant but the respondent, who was self-represented, was understandably unable to make any submissions in response. Although we recognize that there may well be merit in these grounds too, we consider that in these circumstances it is desirable that we confine our judgment to the jurisdictional issue.