Legal Test - Re: Interference of Reasonable Enjoyment

TET-68095-16 (Re), 2016 CanLII 72232 (ON LTB)

23. This application is based on the rights set out in sections 22 and 23 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (the 'Act') which read as follows:

22. A landlord shall not at any time during a tenant’s occupancy of a rental unit and before the day on which an order evicting the tenant is executed substantially interfere with the reasonable enjoyment of the rental unit or the residential complex in which it is located for all usual purposes by a tenant or members of his or her household.

23. A landlord shall not harass, obstruct, coerce, threaten or interfere with a tenant.

24. I have no doubt that the Tenants are frustrated by the Landlord’s failure to issue a parking decal for their son’s car. But that frustration does not in and of itself constitute substantial interference with reasonable enjoyment. The wording of section 22 indicates that for a landlord to be found in breach there is an objective element to the test as well as the subjective impact on the tenant. In other words, the conduct complained of must be unreasonable in some manner.

25. With respect to s. 23, harassment is generally considered to be a course of conduct that the reasonable landlord ought to know would be unwelcome.