In theory, it’s a symbiotic relationship — a landlord provides housing for a tenant and in return the tenant provides income for the landlord. Everyone’s happy, right?

Yet, experts say in Toronto’s tight housing market there’s a growing wedge between landlords and tenants.

“What I’m experiencing right now, both on the landlord and tenant side, is a lot of antagonism and a lot of mistrust,” said Toronto lawyer Caryma Sa’d, who represents both tenants and landlords.

On the landlord side, that antagonism was on public display in a recent online forum, in which a group of Ontario-based landlords blatantly shared tips on how best to evict tenants in bad faith to raise rents, such as lying about a family member moving in.

On the online forum, posted to Red Flag Deals, landlords bemoaned rules one said were “heavy on the tenant protection.” They discussed roadblocks they face in trying to get higher rents, and touted using Airbnb over long-term rentals. One user even referred to some renters as “professional, douchebag tenants.”

At the same time, renters are also organizing. The Facebook group “Ontario Tenant Rights” boasts more than 26,000 members, sharing screen grabs of texts from landlords and seeking advice on fighting eviction notices.

Experts the Star spoke to point to the Toronto’s increasingly tight housing market — which has a vacancy rate of just 1.1 per cent — pitting landlords seeking higher profits against tenants trying to stave off rent increases or re-entering the market.

Adding fuel to that tension, they say, is growing inequality, systemic problems and, in some cases, downright greed.

Why landlords are becoming more disdainful of tenants

“Landlords don’t feel good if they have a tenant that has been there for a while, who might be a great tenant, but they’re seeing every property surrounding them is making more money,” Sa’d said.

The average monthly rent for a one-bedroom condo in the GTA is just under $2,200, according to a July report from the Toronto Real Estate Board. That’s up 6.7 per cent compared to the same time in 2018.

Sa’d said there is a string of Divisional Court cases that refer to “professional tenants” as individuals who game the system by not paying rent and then using delay tactics to avert the sheriff, thus abusing the protections built into the system. But in this market even good tenants are garnering the disdain of landlords.

She said tenants who are effective in asserting their rights can derail a property sale or the owner’s ability to pay the mortgage, as it can sometimes take weeks for eviction applications to be heard by the Landlord and Tenant Board, the tribunal that adjudicates disputes between both sides.

“Small-scale landlords don’t necessarily have a huge financial buffer,” she said, and a tenant that doesn’t pay rent or challenges an eviction notice “could potentially cause someone, if not to lose their home, put them in a financially precarious situation.”

Sa’d said in her experience it can take around two months for cases in Toronto to be heard by the LTB. It could also take weeks, depending on the complexity of the case, after the hearing before a judgment is issued, she said.

The average time it takes for a landlord’s application to make it to the tribunal is 37. 1 days, according to fall figures from the LTB. Tenant filings averaged about 44.8 days.

Mark Weisleder, senior partner at Real Estate Lawyers.ca LLP, has seen cases where tenants kill a property’s sale because they refuse to leave in a timely fashion, he said.

“Tenants can challenge (landlords claim of the sale), saying they don’t believe it, and use every trick in the book,” he said. “In some cases it took up to a year to evict the tenant.”

Kayla Andrade, of Ontario Landlords Watch, blames delays at the “broken” LTB, saying “there is a growing population of small landlords getting fed up with the Landlord and Tenant Board system.”

Andrade, a landlord herself, said a system bogged down by red tape motivates landlords to do things that are not ethical.

“They’re willing to do whatever they can to get rid of that tenant instead of going through the system,” she said.

But Weisleder said the LTB system, though not perfect, still offers checks and balance.

“Landlords have to show good faith and tenants have the right to dispute any notice if they are suspicious as to the landlords’ motives,” he said.

Sa’d added landlords also typically have more wherewithal than tenants to keep filing applications with the LTB, she said.

“If the first go isn’t successful there may be another application that can be used,” she said. “Generally speaking, landlords have more of an ability than tenants to keep applying pressure and wait for tenants to no longer withstand it.”

She said landlords have to remember that no investment has guaranteed returns. And though their aim is to generate revenue, they are held accountable for providing what’s essentially a social service, which is shelter, and that can’t just be ripped away from tenants.

Why tenants are becoming more disdainful of landlords

David Hulchanski, a University of Toronto housing and community development professor, said the tensions between the two sides aren’t new, but that income disparity between renters and landlords coupled with the thinning housing supply is adding fuel to it.

“Growing income and wealth inequality is dividing the city,” he said. “It’s not that bad blood has developed, it just worsened.”

According to 2016 Statistic Canada data used in a U of T study dubbed the Neighbourhood Change Research Partnership, owners median after-tax income was, on average, $43,000 more than that earned by renters.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

Hulchanski said there is a dire shortage of affordable rental units for moderate and low-income tenants, and landlords looking to eke out a profit and tenants fighting to keep living expenses affordable find themselves in scenario where competing interest can spark contention.

“There is a supply problem here,” he said. “It isn’t fair and hasn’t been.”

He added vacancy decontrol, brought in in the late-1990s under then premier Mike Harris, allows landlords to set the rent for a vacant unit at whatever they want. Not so for existing tenants, as landlords can only increase their rent by a set amount — 1.8 per cent for 2019 — with the exception of new, not previously occupied units brought on the market after November 2018, an exemption brought in recently by the current Doug Ford government.

Hulchanski said vacancy decontrol is a key motivation for landlords to try and push out tenants.

“They’re doing it (trying to evict tenants) because there can be a big payday,” he said. “That’s what I call gouging. You’re not raising rent because your building is wonderful and you’ve invested a lot of money in it, you just want more rent.”

He said because of the supply shortage, landlords set rents at what they can get away with — and those who want to evict to take advantage of being able to reset that rent “will find ways to harass and evict people,” he said.

“It’s just setting up a warfare-type system,” he added.

However, Hulchanski said he does sympathize with landlords whose profit margins are slim because they have made a significant investment in their property and need to increase rent to make the investment worthwhile.

“It’s totally understandable the squeeze that owners are in,” he said. “It’s the appreciation over time, where you really make money.”

How to bring the two sides back together

Tony Irwin, president and CEO of the Federation of Rental-Housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO), which represents 2,200 member landlords across the province, said reforms, such as increasing the number of adjudicators to speed up LTB case processing, are needed to reduce red tape and wait times for hearings, which is beneficial to both landlords and tenants.

He cautioned against reading too much into the landlords’ rhetoric in the RFD forum, adding “you have to be mindful of what you’re reading online and whether that really paints the whole picture.”

“This industry exists because we provide housing to tenants,” he said. “If there were no tenants to provide that to, we wouldn’t have an industry.”

U of T professor Hulchanski added there needs to be an ongoing update of landlord and tenant regulations.

He is calling for an end to vacancy decontrol and for city-owned land to be allocated for socially mixed housing rather than expensive market rentals. He also said the federal government should focus on keeping its 2015 election promise to “restore the federal role in housing,” which means a social housing supply program, he said.

“The solutions are big ones and ones that governments don’t want to do, so down on the ground you’re seeing this kind of strife,” he said.

But he also said that unethical behaviour is not pervasive, noting the rules are designed to allow landlords to evict in good faith and the vast majority are doing so.

“You are hearing from some, which is a minority, who want to find anyway to evict people,” he said.

“Most landlords and tenants exist just fine.”