Ottawa Citizen November 22, 2010

Re: The Shame Of St. Patrick St., Nov. 14.

I am the owner of Landlord Legal, a small firm in Barrie, working to keep up with landlords in need.

Thank you for your efforts in exposing the reality of the eviction process.

So often, landlords bring these applications to the Landlord and Tenant Board and lack witnesses because of fear of retaliation. Police can’t assist in matters that are still “open investigations.”

Lacking witnesses and police records, the applications fail, or we must instead find other, safer applications to the board such as rent arrears or damages to the unit, instead of the biggest reason: the rental unit is a crack house, and other tenants are disrupted and endangered.

It is incredibly difficult to terminate tenancies in this province. The Landlord is held to an onerous burden of proof. The tenant is often enabled and in fact encouraged to drag things out.

These stories are taking place all over Ontario, every day. The Landlord and Tenant Board is profiting from the misfortune of the residential landlord, and turns a blind eye to repeat offender tenants, who make a mockery of the process.

Right out of the gate, the landlord loses. It costs $170 to bring a tenant to the board, while tenants pay $45 to bring a landlord to the board.

Affordable housing in this province will continue to decline as private residential landlords realize they have bitten off more than they intended to chew.

C. April Stewart, Landlord Legal