Toronto tenants fighting landlord's rent increase in building they say is unsafe

Laurel Grove apartment complex, near Don Mills Road and Highway 401, in Toronto.

A group of tenants in a North York apartment building is fighting back against a proposed five per cent rent increase from their landlord who they say is poorly managing the deteriorating building.

Tenants of the Laurel Grove apartment complex, near Don Mills Road and Highway 401, were served with notice of an above guideline rent increase (AGI) in 2019 after Homestead, a property holdings company that owns the building, replaced balconies and hallway carpets.

But tenants say those fixes needed to be made anyway. They also say that the building is not properly maintained.

“No repairs are done in the apartments. It can take months or years sometimes depending on the case,” says Fabian Rojas, a tenant at Laurel Grove for seven years.

“I think they use this as tactic to bully old tenants out of their apartments. It’s very insecure, there are break-ins in apartments and cars and there is no accountability and no rental office in the building. There is no cleaning done, there are [cockroach] and bed bug infestations every month.”

A landlord who wishes to raise a tenant’s rent above the maximum set out by the province needs to apply for the increase through the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB).

Many tenants in the building refused to pay the increase when they were served with it over three years ago and vowed to challenge it in front of an LTB tribunal, but due to pandemic closures, the hearing has been pushed back until later this month.

Now those tenants who haven’t paid the proposed increase over the past three years face the prospect of being on the hook for months of rent back-pay if the increase is upheld.

Daniel Wilkes, who has also lived in the building for seven years, started a tenant Facebook group after he was served with the AGI in 2019. He says the work done on the balconies and carpets was necessary, but only because it had been neglected for so long.

“We had very old, rusty balconies and they used to attach to the front of the building, whereas the new ones now sit on the balcony. My thing is, these are going to last 20 years. I'm not going to live here probably for 20 years. But they're trying to put that $900,000 bill on the tenants that are living there and raise the rent, when this was something that needed to be done anyway,” Wilkes said.

The landlord, Homestead Land Holdings, owns and operates over 27,000 apartments across the province and calls itself “one of Canada's largest and most respected landlords.”

The company’s founding principles are to provide residents with “affordable, secure housing with a standard of care in which we would treat our own family members.”

Wilkes says the building is deteriorating and adds that when he makes a complaint to Homestead, it rarely gets addressed.

“I feel like I get harassed every time I make a complaint. They want to do an inspection on my unit. So I have a camera on my front door and I have cameras inside. I just don't trust this staff. I don't allow them in my apartment when I'm not here. Plus, I have two dogs. The stuff they allow to go on in this building; I do feel it's one way to push tenants out quickly,” Wilkes said.

Despite the deteriorating conditions described by tenants, they’ll likely face an uphill battle when their case is tried in front of the LTB tribunal, as AGIs are typically upheld as long as the building upgrades are deemed a necessary capital expenditure.

If, however, an upgrade is deemed purely cosmetic, the AGI can be denied, according to Kelly Bentley, an outreach organizer with the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations.

“Upgrades can be made by a landlord at anytime, however only necessary capital repairs can be passed on in an above guideline rent increase. Purely cosmetic upgrades are not considered necessary capital expenditures. Ultimately it is up to an adjudicator at the Landlord and Tenant Board to determine if the repair is cosmetic or not and that will depend on why the work was undertaken,” Bentley said.

Wilkes says that some tenants in the building are wary about bringing forward requests for repairs in their unit because they fear being ‘renovicted,’ whereby a landlord makes upgrades to a unit in order to raise the price.

But Bentley says that a landlord is not legally allowed to raise a tenant’s rent for carrying out general maintenance on a unit.

“This is an issue tenants often bring up at our meetings with tenants facing an AGI, however general maintenance issues cannot become part of an AGI application. AGI applications only have to do with major necessary repairs, the type of repairs that involve multiple units and cost a lot of money,” Bentley said.

“A leaky faucet, mould in a bathroom, infestations or broken fridges are not considered major repairs and so I try to reassure tenants and tell them to make their maintenance requests because it will not be passed on in an AGI and the landlord has a duty to keep the unit and the building in a good state of repair.”

Some tenants at Laurel Grove have been paying the proposed rental increase since they received notice of it three years ago, however others, including Rojas, have not.

He says he will owe over $4,000 to Homestead if the AGI is upheld.

“I really can’t afford the increase and will have to cut necessary things to budget the increase and back-pay. It’s going to be difficult,” Rojas said.

Wilkes says it’s especially hard for older tenants in the building, many of whom are on fixed incomes, to afford the increase.

“I know some [tenants] here are on fixed income. Steve’s lived in this building my whole life basically. There's another [tenant,] he's losing his hearing, he's been here since ‘73,” Wilkes said.

CP24.com reached out to Homestead for comment on multiple occasions but has not received a response.