In a case before the Housing Tribunal (TAL), a tenant got the better of her landlord who did not respect her commitments and harassed her to make her abandon her dwelling permanently. A banal story of renoviction that had a rare outcome, with the imposition of substantial punitive damages.
As reported The duty Monday, tenant Maude Annie St-Laurent lived a nightmare that began when the owner and speculator LS Capital Group asked her in 2021 to leave her 4 and a half room apartment in the Centre-Sud of Montreal in order to carry out major works.
It was in 2019 that LS Capital Group acquired this 18-unit building on rue Saint-Timothée. Since then, most tenants have been evicted from their homes. On its website, the company boasted of achieving a 95% tenant eviction rate in properties it acquired. As a result of belated scruples, one can presume, this mention has disappeared.
Promising its investors “a substantial equity gain”, LS Capital defines itself as a company whose “competitive advantage” is “to find and secure undervalued properties” in order to “develop them to their full market value “. Obviously, with such a business plan, it is not in his intention to bother with tenants who pay rents of less than $1,000 per month in Montreal.
Harassment is part of his methods, concluded judge Luk Dufort of the TAL. Initially, the landlord and the tenant had reached an agreement for her to leave her apartment for about three months. The landlord agreed to pay her compensation of a few thousand dollars as well as the difference between the price of her rent and that of the temporary accommodation she was to occupy. Nothing to complain about so far. However, the months passed, and the tenant had to submit a request to the TAL in January 2022 to return to her accommodation. In July, LS Capital Group decided to violate the agreement by not renewing the lease for the temporary accommodation. Result: Mme St-Laurent had to pay two rents for two months while she obtained a safeguard order.
Judge Dufort saw in the maneuver of the owner, which could have had even greater consequences had it not been for the order, “a strategy aimed at exerting economic pressure on the tenant” so that she abandons the game. It is in itself harassment, “serious misconduct”, which entitles the plaintiff to punitive damages of $15,000 in this case. “The pretext of temporary evacuation to try to obtain the permanent eviction of a tenant is similar to the practice known as “renovictions”, […] practice which must be prohibited in the rental environment. The amount of punitive damages is exceptionally large, according to the lawyer who represented the tenant. It must be important in order to dissuade other owners from carrying out such maneuvers, underlines the judge.
What this case highlights is that it takes perseverance and stubbornness to resist the harassment of speculators willing to do a lot to make the pass. Even if you are represented by a lawyer, which is essential in such cases, you have to spend time and energy to assert your rights, while overcoming your anxiety. It’s not easy for everyone. The proof is that there are only a few tenants who have chosen to stand up to LS Capital Group.
What this case also shows is that the abusive evictions of tenants, their scheduled replacement by better-off people, are a well-established business model for which tenants pay the price despite the protection provided by the Civil Code. and the TAL Act.