TORONTO

Maybe it’s time to make it more difficult to game the system and live rent free in this expensive city.

In one of the latest cases, the Ontario Divisional Court has allowed small landlord Patricio Rojas to finally evict Rogers Afam Nwabue after he failed to pay a cent in rent for 18 months. But it’s not even a record, it seems.

In August, the same court reinstated an eviction order on tenant Michelle Williams after she hadn’t paid rent to landlord Amir Baig for an astounding 25 months — with arrears totalling $52,500.

She tried to delay the process even longer, sending a friend to court to ask for an adjournment with a vague note saying she was in hospital. “Adjournments only benefit her, as she continues to be able to live in the premises rent free,” the court said, refusing her request and allowing the eviction to go ahead.

As for the rent owed, “I would bet every cent that I have that the landlord didn’t get paid,” says Doug Levitt, one of Baig’s lawyers.

In the Nwabue case, he hadn’t paid rent on his Scarborough apartment on Howell Square since April 1, 2015. After meeting with the Landlord and Tenant Board’s mediation service, he agreed to vacate the apartment July 31 and in return, Rojas would waive the money he owed.

But then Nwabue refused to move out. When the Board denied his request for a review, he appealed to the Divisional Court. And as soon as a tenant appeals, the eviction order is stayed and he lives rent-free until the appeal is heard.

Instead of that free ride, Levitt, who acts for many landlords caught in this bind, says the rules should be “tweaked” so tenants don’t have an automatic right to appeal or at least are required to pay their rent into court while they await a hearing.

Otherwise, the longer bad tenants can drag it out, the longer they can enjoy gratis accommodation.

“There are loopholes,” warns lawyer Matt Maurer, “that if you know what you’re doing, you can really take advantage.”

Not surprisingly, Nwabue didn’t seem to be in a hurry to get his appeal into court. On Feb. 26, March 16 and June 10, 2016, the landlord’s lawyer sent him letters suggesting possible hearing dates. He never replied.

Rojas wrote him twice in September to tell him he was going to court to try and quash the eviction appeal. Once again, there was no response. The motion was scheduled for Nov. 22 — Nwabue was a no show. The judge set a hearing date for Dec. 6.

This time, Nwabue “sprang into action,” faxing the court Dec. 5 to say he’d received the notice on Dec. 1 and the hearing date “is conflicting with the start date of my Graduate Program Examination at a university campus almost 1,000 kilometres from Toronto. Besides, I could not have prepared for the hearing and arranged a travel to Toronto within the very short notice of four days.”

He was told to send university confirmation of his exam schedule and his available dates in December. By late the following morning, they still hadn’t heard from Nwabue so they went on without him. “It is plain that the tenant was evading contact and avoiding a hearing, particularly in light of the fact that he had been in possession of the apartment rent-free since April 1, 2015,” wrote Superior Court Justice Michael Dambrot on behalf of the panel.

While the hearing was going on, the court office received an email from Nwabue saying he was at McGill University and his final exams began that day. A little research by the court revealed it was a take-home exam: “Clearly it was not an insurmountable obstacle to the tenant attending court on the date scheduled, particularly bearing in mind that he is about 500 kilometres from Toronto, and not 1,000 kilometres away as he had suggested in his previous correspondence.”

They dismissed Nwabue’s appeal and ordered the immediate vacancy of his apartment. “He’s happy to have it over with,” says Rojas’s lawyer Amelia Yiu.

Well, not quite. Nwabue has served notice that he’s seeking leave to appeal to Ontario’s highest court.

mmandel@postmedia.com