An Innisfil woman has been ordered to pay back rent in excess of $7,000 to her landlord following a recent tribunal hearing.
“There’s no end to this pandemic and I sat there at the (Landlord and Tenant Board) Tribunal watching them order tenants to pay thousands of dollars,” said Innisfil resident Elizabeth Hopkins.
In October 2019, Hopkins rented a quaint cottage in Innisfil for $1,500 a month with her husband, one-year-old daughter, and puppy.
Before moving in, they say they were assured by their new landlords that the single-storey, wooden building had been “fully winterized” with newly installed baseboard heating and updated sealing for protection against animals and inclement weather.
When December arrived, Hopkins said she noticed the floors became "cold as ice" and all the water pipes had frozen solid. Upon hiring a plumber to investigate, it was discovered there was no insulation under the floorboards or around the water pipes.
The property owners — who reside in Toronto but also own a cottage across the street from the Hopkins — offered to wrap a heating coil around the water main, allowing liquid water to be retrieved from one tap inside the dwelling.
“The floor was so cold that we always wore slippers or shoes,” said Hopkins. “We filled pots of water to flush the toilets, boiled water to clean dishes and visited friends to take showers. … We tried to use as minimal water as possible.”
By January, Hopkins said the drains in the house began backing up with dirty water and sewage, creating a whole new mess of issues for the family.
The landlords then enlisted a company to pump the septic tank, but were unsure of where the tank existed on the large property.
After a week of ‘exploratory digging’, the septic tank was found to be “extremely old, rusted shut, punctured through with tree roots and leaking into the groundwater.”
“The environmental hazard alone made the area unlivable – not to mention the dangerous holes in the yard that made it unsafe for our daughter to play outside,” said Hopkins.
In January 2020, the landlords emailed their tenants to advise them they would not be proceeding with any of the necessary repairs to bring the house up to liveble standards and, as such, would be terminating the lease. They suggested the Hopkins family “immediately take steps to find a new place” and offered them, in writing, a full refund of rent payments and returning all their post-dated cheques.
“We were super appreciative of that offer, especially considering the circumstances,” said Hopkins. “(The landlords) even said they were happy we didn’t go to a hotel, because they would have had to pay for those accommodations.”
But Hopkins says the landlords took an immediate turn, like a “weird switch,” she describes.
“We found a possible new home in February, (but) securing the space required immediate payment of first and last month's rent (and) in order to provide this we needed access to the prior payments that our landlords had promised to refund," she said.
Hopkins claims the landlords refused to return any payments based on the grounds the offer only applied if the Hopkins had moved “immediately." Unfortunately, the family was unable to secure the alternate accommodations in time, forcing them to remain in the unsafe home while the province moved into a pandemic lockdown.
“We missed the window to put down a deposit and lost our chance to move out,” she said. “Then, in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit and changed the entire rental landscape. Very few people were moving and what rare places did hit the market were subject to vicious bidding wars that we did not have the funds to compete in.”
Prior to COVID, Hopkins worked as a school counsellor and her husband operated a construction company. However, due to the pandemic, the couple was unable to work and had to collect the CERB payments.
Despite frantically searching, the couple was unable to secure a new home until August 2020. During that time, the septic tank remained exposed and the yard demolished.
The Hopkins family made the best of the situation and attempted to board up the leaking septic tank, but, according to Hopkins, the landlords would visit the property and remove the boards and continued to make things difficult for the family.
The landlords cashed the rent cheques for both February and March, and by April the Hopkins chose to stop payment of all future rental cheques, claiming they were “living in an uninhabitable house with an exposed septic tank in the backyard, and pipes that continued to freeze.” They also needed to try and save up first and last month's rent in order to be able to vacate the premises.
“We believed our landlords, based on their original stated intention to return our uncashed rent cheques, were not expecting further rent from us while we tried our utmost to find somewhere else to live,” she said.
In February, Hopkins consulted with the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) to be prepared to file a complaint, but at the time she still had hopes the situation could be resolved amicably.
In November 2020, three months after the Hopkins family had already moved into their new home, they received a notice from the LTB to attend a hearing based on allegations of unpaid rent.
Hopkins consulted with a lawyer and was told their case seemed “sound” and would not require a lawyer to represent them at the hearing.
The hearing took place over two days — in November and again in February 2021. The LTB ruled against the Hopkins family and ordered them to pay back more than $7,000 in rent. On top of this, they were expected to pay back the arrears within six months with no appeal process.
The landlords were ordered to pay the tenants the cost of the plywood they purchased and used to keep the exposed septic tank boarded up for safety.
“Nothing we said mattered," Hopkins said. "We lived in the house and must pay the rent. I would have been fine with a blank slate (and) walk away. … I was just floored.”
Adjudicator Jitewa Edu was unavailable for comment.
The landlords, Thomas and Anna Baldwin, were contacted and provided this statement:
“We offered to refund them the early months' rent if they would move immediately. They decided to call that a ‘promise,’ but they never moved. There was never any evidence of real action on their part to find alternate accommodations,” said Thomas. “There was a very fair hearing, and the adjudicator said they must pay the rent for the entire period they lived there.
"The offer we made to refund them the rent they paid up until January was conditional on them taking immediate action to leave the premises," he added. "The adjudicator found that was the case and she awarded us the non-paid rent for the time they were actually living on the property.”
Thomas said the LTB, "which is not known for being fair to landlords," is there to look out of tenants’ interest. He said the board was "very fair" and heard both sides of the story.
To date, the Baldwins say they have not received any payments from the Hopkins.
Thomas says the septic tank remains exposed on the property due to approvals required from the local conservation authority.
“The septic tank issue was a complete surprise to everybody, and the water issue was one we’ve never had come up before," he added. "A pipe froze, twice, and we fixed it with a plumber. We did give the January rent back. We were trying to be fair and generous throughout, and they painted us as monsters.
“The adjudicator's decision is final. The decision was made. It wasn’t one we were entirely happy with – we wanted to be reimbursed the costs of the hydro (over $1,000)," Thomas said.
The Hopkins family has started a GoFundMe page to help cover their costs.
“We’re expecting to be paid Sept. 30,” said Thomas. “Our attitude toward this is about the same attitude we had toward the apparent GoFundMe — we just let it go and have no comment on it. There’s no object behind it from our perspective.
"If they don’t pay, we’re out the money and we’ll have to get another lawyer to enforce the claim. That’s another bridge that will be crossed if they don’t honour the decision from the LTB," he added.
