Tenants fight back as landlords seeking own-use evictions rise 85% in Ontario
More landlords need properties back, often because of higher interest rates, advocate says
Chris Kostav and Shari Keyes may have targets on their backs.
In a hot Toronto real estate market, both tenants are paying well below market rent for their units in a low-rise building in East York.
And now their landlord wants them out. According to their eviction notices, the landlord plans to move family members into both apartments.
"I think the only reason he wants me to leave is so he can charge higher rent," said Kostav, who is retired after working as an electrician and has lived in the studio unit for nearly 20 years.
The landlord filed N12 eviction applications with Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board for both tenants, otherwise known as an own-use eviction, saying he needs to move his daughter into one unit and his parents into the other.
Neither Kostav or Keyes believe their landlord. They both obtained a lawyer and pushed back at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
In an email to CBC, their landlord, Sofiene Bousselmi, denied the evictions are in bad faith and said that he does need to move his family members in.
In the midst of a national housing crisis, Kostav and Keyes have been caught in a battle between an increasing number of landlords who say they need to repossess their rental properties and an increasing number of tenants who are refusing to leave without a fight.
For Kostav, the battle continues, with his next hearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board expected in early August. For Keyes, the Ontario Landlord and Tenant Board ruled earlier this month that the landlord had acted in bad faith with his eviction application for her unit, allowing her to stay in her unit for now.
For Keyes, 56, giving up her apartment would have meant her daughter and granddaughter would have most likely had to leave Toronto permanently or possibly end up homeless.
"The rents everywhere are so high we knew we couldn't afford anything else. We had to fight because we've been worried about the possibility of homelessness this entire time," said Keyes.
As rents continue to reach new highs across the country — up 22 per cent in two years, with a one-bedroom apartment going for a national average of $1,929, according to data from Rentals.ca — some Ontario tenants who have received N12 eviction notices say there is nowhere else to go, and they are going to do what they can to stay put.
Tracking bad-faith evictions
The increase in own-use evictions seems to be happening elsewhere in the country.
The B.C. government just launched an online portal to help combat bad-faith evictions by landlords saying they need their units.
The battle between Keyes and her landlord went on for nearly two years as a result of delays at the Landlord and Tenant Board. She said it took a massive toll on her, her daughter and granddaughter as they worried about the future and lived amid boxes packed in anticipation of perhaps having to leave.
Kostav is paying $600 per month for his rent-controlled studio unit, but said he believes the landlord wants to double or even triple the amount, based on the rising rents in the neighbourhood.
"Where am I going to live? Maybe I'm going to live on the street or be homeless. I can't afford with my pension to pay higher rent than this now. That is it," said Kostav, 66, who has also been living amid packed boxes for months in the event he does have to leave.
According to Landlord and Tenant Board data, applications for own-use evictions — which can be used when the landlord or a family member needs to move into the unit — are up 85 per cent in Ontario since 2020, rising from 3,445 that year to 6,376 in 2023.
Board data also show that T5 applications — when a tenant wants to dispute the own-use claim after they have left the unit — quadrupled from 2020 to 2023.
In 2020, 331 T5 applications were filed. In 2023, that number rose to 1,335. In the first four months of 2024, there were 504 applications.
The Landlord and Tenant Board handed out more than twice the number of fines for bad faith evictions in 2023 compared to 2022, with 23 fines in 2023, compared to 11 the previous year.
Experts say own-use evictions have historically been the easiest way for a landlord to get a tenant out. In the past, landlords likely may not have even had to file at the board — they could just tell the tenant a family member was moving in.
That is changing.
"People are clinging to their homes with their fingernails like they are. They're desperately clawing to stay in their apartment, even if that apartment is terrible," said Karly Wilson, a housing lawyer at Don Valley Community Legal Services in Toronto.
"I tell my tenants if they've been anywhere for more than five years, they have a target on their back."
In most provinces in Canada — including in Ontario where Keyes and Kostav live — rent controls are only enforced when a tenant is living in the unit. Otherwise there is vacancy decontrol, which means once a unit is vacant, the landlord can charge whatever they want.
And in tight rental markets where demand far outstrips supply, there's a big financial incentive to flip a unit back into the market and charge higher rents.
"Tenants will refuse to leave an apartment for years because they know they have nowhere to go," said Wilson.
Rising mortgage rates
But some small landlords and landlord advocates say this isn't the full story and that the issue is an increase in landlords actually needing their properties back, often because of higher interest rates.
"If you have to pay $800 a month for your rental property, and then your mortgage needs to be renewed for your principal residence and you have to pay another $600 or $800 for that, you can't afford it," said Rose Marie, vice-chair of Small Ownership Landlords of Ontario (SOLO), a landlord advocacy group.
"You can't just pass that monthly increase over to the tenant. So then who's paying it?"
I never hear a tenant advocate talk about the math.- Rose Marie
Marie said more landlords are choosing to sell their rentals because of rising costs or move in family who can't afford the hot rental markets across the country.
At a recent SOLO protest at Queen's Park in Toronto, several landlords protested the delays at the Landlord and Tenant Board in dealing with tenants fighting their N12 eviction notices.
"I am a single mom, I cannot afford this, I have to move back into my house and I cannot," landlord Jessica Huang said through tears.
Her issue, she said, is as Marie laid it out: once mortgage rates went up, she could no longer afford the rental property. Now, she needs to move in instead and can't.
"I never hear a tenant advocate talk about the math. Never," Marie said.
Wilson, the tenant lawyer, also said that despite the rise in N12 applications, there is no way of counting how many tenants who get an N12 notice actually put up a fight. Most usually just move.
"It's an easy way to get somebody evicted, honestly. An N12 doesn't have a high burden of proof. It just requires one person saying: 'I want to move into this unit.' And unless you can prove that they're lying about that, which is hard, you kind of have to go with it," she said.
"I think that creates the perfect storm we're in right now."
'The prices don't make sense'
For Keyes and her daughter, this battle doesn't feel quite over.
"The stress and depression of us looking for other places to live and realizing you can't afford anything — these prices don't make sense," Amanda Howell said.
"Even though we won we are still worried about what comes next."
The dismissal of the eviction application means they can stay and continue to pay their current rate, but they say it would be nice to have the freedom to leave if they could.
"It's heartbreaking, stressful and terrifying, all of this, I wouldn't want anyone else to go through this," Keyes said.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
With files from Ioanna Roumeliotis