Verbal agreements on leases and new landlords? Animals

Jul 16, 2011 08:13

Hey guys, I hope you can help me out becuase the Regie site is failing me right now ( Read more... )

pets, apartments: landlord issues

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Comments 15

evyg July 16 2011, 14:04:12 UTC
i don't know specifically about Quebec (or Ontario) law; but generally speaking, you are in breach of your contract. your landlord has given you the opportunity to amend the situation, and has the right to evict you if you refuse to comply.

why can't you evict someone in Ontario for having pets when the contract specifically states that you cannot?

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evyg July 16 2011, 15:10:58 UTC
i see how the Regie site might be a bit confusing...but as far as i understand it, "A landlord may refuse to rent to a tenant who has pets" in Quebec, meaning that it is not considered discriminatory. however, the question "If a no pets and no smoking clause is written into a lease or a by-law and the landlord discovers that the tenant has a pet or smokes in the rental unit, is this grounds for the landlord to evict the tenant?" yields the answer: "Yes, but only if the landlord can prove that this action by the tenant has resulted in a serious injury. ... The landlord may also apply to have the tenant cease the offensive activity; i.e. for a court order to instruct the tenant to stop smoking in the rental unit or to get rid of the pet." not sure whether a verbal warning from the landlord is legal, then; he or she (or they) may need a court order in order (ha!) to do so.

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xsourkittenx July 16 2011, 18:07:05 UTC
Rental laws in Ontario are vastly different from Quebec. You can't refuse to rent to someone or kick them out because they have pets. You can put whatever crap you want in the lease agreement, but in the case of pets it won't stand up in court.

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wendykh July 17 2011, 00:11:00 UTC
Ontario law considers it a human right to own a companion animal. :-)

Besides the general civility of this (I always thought it strange how QC in general and Montreal in particular has such a HATRED of animals, dogs in particular, when it's such a France WannaBe) this is also sensible for animal control as one of the main reasons QC has such an insane pet abandonment rate is we have such a huge amount of renters and LLs who ban pets rather than excessive noise/destruction in general be it from animals, douchebag ex boyfriends, or students.

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girl_fawkes July 16 2011, 14:39:32 UTC
I think you're outta luck. You signed a lease that says no pets, and that supersedes anything else that the law says about the matter.

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bee_york July 16 2011, 15:25:11 UTC
You can't evict people in Ontario for having pets??!?!? That is WONDERFUL. It's really too bad it's not like that here. It's totally discriminatory and I know a lot of people who have had a LOT of problems finding a place to live just because they have a dog or whatever. :/ Something to learn from Ontario!

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xsourkittenx July 16 2011, 18:08:12 UTC
It's the one thing I miss about renting in ontario!!

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wendykh July 17 2011, 00:08:01 UTC
It is considered a human right to have a companion animal in Ontario.

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bee_york July 17 2011, 17:08:45 UTC
That is awesome!

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sapphireluna July 16 2011, 19:18:44 UTC
If you can read french, try reading this http://www.spcamontreal.com/media1.php?lg=en&id=30

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zenchild July 16 2011, 19:40:23 UTC
Thank you!! This actually give me a bit of hope. I'm starting to lean more and more towards fighting this considering I don't have a bad dog and I'm a great tenant
:)

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wendykh July 17 2011, 00:07:34 UTC
I know three people who have fought this, and won. The fact you had a previous verbal agreement and this is a new landlord will help.

It does unfortunately potentially create an adversarial relationship with your landlord. In two cases I know of the tenant basically said "well, feel free to take me to the regie" and the LL sort of grumbled, filed the paperwork, and then when they finally got there lost and got over it. In the third case the LL turned up the asshole juice full throttle and made such a fucking nuisance of himself my buddy just moved out.

This bullshit about pets (as opposed to noise/destruction from any source be it kids, nutbag boyfriends, or students) is one of the biggest reason Quebec as a whole and Montreal in general has such a horrible rate of pet dumping btw.

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zenchild July 18 2011, 21:16:41 UTC
Good news for anyone following this thread. I reached the Regie today and I'm in the right. Because the dog was here before he bought the building, and I had that verbal agreement, he cannot force me to get rid of her, nor can he evict me, unless the dog had shown aggression/bit someone, or destroyed the apartment.
So IF it goes to court, the Regie guy seemed very very confident that he would be in the wrong, and an interesting point he made was that if the previous landlords were reluctant to come and testify that they said that, they could be subpoenaed to show up. So thats the worst case. Well, no, the worse case is that the current landlord turns into a complete and utter dink and I ended up leaving because of it, but at that point he'll be paying for my move I think :p
keep your fingers crossed for us! ;)

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bee_york July 18 2011, 21:26:52 UTC
Ah yay! I am so happy to read this. :) Go you, and good luck!

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