Facing huge losses thanks to LTB delays, landlord pens plea to Ontario premier

An Ontario landlord is joining a chorus of calls for help from landlords facing huge costs thanks to big delays as they try to use legal processes to evict tenants who aren’t paying rent.

Jaspal Kandola even wrote to Ontario’s premier for help in cutting an eight-month delay in getting to a hearing that he worries will compound the $9,900 he claims he is already owed by his tenants.

But the response from Premier Doug Ford’s office blamed the COVID-19 pandemic — and didn’t leave him with any hope of a fix, Kandola said.

“The last time I received my rent was June,” Kandola said. With each month that goes by, he says he has to pay his mortgage without that rental income — and he says he’s running out of time.

“That’s a scary situation. A very scary situation. I could lose my house,” Kandola said, adding he owns his own home and one rental property.

Kandola is at the beginning of the process that can legally remove tenants from their homes for non-payment of rent. Typically tenants can stay in their homes while the process goes on.

He’s worried he will go down the track of another tale of a landlord, whose two-year odyssey through the LTB saw total unpaid rent climb higher than $76,000 before the tenant was finally evicted.

In a letter to the premier, Kandola wrote, “I am struggling with my mortgage payment, soon to be facing consequences for missed payments / delayed payments.”

In response, Ford’s office wrote, “I’m sorry to hear you’ve had such a difficult time with your tenant. The LTB is an adjudicative tribunal that resolves disputes independently of government. To preserve its autonomy, I am not permitted to interfere in or comment on tribunal processes or decisions. However, I can highlight a significant aggravating factor.

“COVID-19 has negatively impacted tribunals like the LTB with sudden, prolonged and unavoidable service delays. With that said, the board is working diligently to improve operations and enhance the quality of dispute resolution,” the letter says.

That letter is an excuse, not a solution, said Liberal MPP Lucille Collard.

“It’s unacceptable. That’s not an answer, that’s not leadership. The board has been created by the government. They appoint the adjudicators. They need to appoint more of them to resolve the backlog,” Collard said.

NDP MPP Jessica Bell said that the LTB has been chronically underfunded long before the pandemic.

Ontario’s Ombudsman started investigating the situation at the agency in January 2020, and says since then they have received more than 1,800 complaints. The pandemic began in March 2020, and led to a five-month shutdown that exacerbated any existing problems.

“We are hearing calls from landlords and tenants alike that they are extremely frustrated by delays they are experiencing with the board. People are waiting months, sometimes years,” Bell said.

Right now, all LTB hearings are virtual. The board needs to include an in-person option for anyone who needs it as one fix for technical problems that have undermined some hearings, she said.

Questions from CTV News were sent by the premier’s staff to a government spokesperson, who said the government changed the Residential Tenancies Act to make it easier to resolve disputes and remove the load from the court system.

“The LTB has also made changes that are intended to reduce the number of applications that need a hearing, use hearing time more efficiently, and increase the capacity of the LTB to hold hearings and resolve disputes before a full hearing,” the spokesperson said.

The LTB is getting $4.5 million in funding to hire new staff and appoint additional adjudicators, the spokesperson said.