Toronto landlord forced to refinance condo as COVID-19 stalls eviction of lawyer owing $16K in rent
Plus a blast from the past: James Regan goes to jail.
CBC News (abridged)
Nicole Brockbank 08 May 2020
Danish Chagani was excited when the lawyer who lived down the hall from his Toronto condo wanted to rent his unit after Chagani bought a house for his young family.
But the first-time landlord says the feeling was short-lived — and about $16,500 in unpaid rent has left him strapped for cash to make his mortgage payments.
Within a few months of moving into the fully-furnished downtown condo in November 2018, tenant Christopher Roper's cheques started to bounce and come in late, Chagani says.
Chagani argues his situation, and that of some of Roper's previous landlords, illustrates how a tenant who knows the system can take advantage of the lengthy process at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) to delay eviction, and live rent free.
And now there's no end in sight for the soon-to-be father of two. His LTB eviction proceeding against Roper — like most evictions across Ontario — has been suspended indefinitely due to COVID-19.
"Even once this is all over, I don't know when I'll have my day in court," Chagani said, referring to an existing backlog at the tribunal.
"Financially, I don't know how long I can continue to support him."
Chagani refinanced his condo this week to cover the cost of two mortgages without the help of $2,700 a month in rent.
The lack of rent is particularly frustrating for Chagani since he discovered this isn't the first time the immigration lawyer has stopped paying rent to a landlord.
Roper's previous landlord a couple of doors down in Chagani's condo building — just south of Yonge and Bloor streets — told him she dealt with a similar situation.
"When I heard the stories of the past, I was floored," Chagani said. "It just matched what I was going through perfectly." Chagani describes the previous landlord's dealings with Roper as "messy" and says she's still trying to get back the rent she lost.
At least two other landlords have had trouble with Roper within the last decade.
In both cases, they took Roper to the LTB looking for an eviction after the lawyer failed to pay thousands in arrears, according to court documents.
The landlords got eviction orders, but then Roper appealed the tribunal decisions to Divisional Court.
In one case, the appeal meant that Roper was able to "reside in the property rent-free for another 10 months" because the eviction was ordered in December 2012 and the appeal wasn't heard until October 2013, according to the decision dismissing the appeal.
Roper's former landlord from that appeal has an active writ of execution — a kind of judicial enforcement order — against Roper for more than $7,300 the lawyer owes from a court judgment.
"Unfortunately, there are people out there that know the law, they know the process and they know its deficiencies," he said. "And knowing the deficiencies puts them in a position to really take advantage of it."
The LSO proceeding against Roper concerns several allegations, including that the immigration lawyer deposited thousands of dollars received in trust from three clients to his firm's general account, and withdrew some, or all, of the funds before performing services or billing for them.
The immigration lawyer also allegedly threatened to sue one of his clients, and charge them more fees, if they took their complaints to the LSO. The self-governing body for lawyers has yet to rule on the allegations and the regulatory proceeding against Roper is ongoing.
Roper's motion for a stay on the eviction order was granted in late February, and the board set a new hearing date for early April.
The April hearing was suspended indefinitely — along with essentially all other Ontario eviction-related hearings — in March because of the pandemic. Right now the tribunal says its only processing eviction applications that involve an "urgent issue such as an illegal act or serious impairment of safety."
The Federation of Rental-housing Providers of Ontario (FRPO) argues the system needs to be improved.
There's an added layer of difficulty in situations where someone might be "gaming the system," FRPO president Tony Irwin says.
"There is no registry; there's no system for people to go to understand if someone that they want to rent to is this kind of person," he told CBC Toronto.
https://bit.ly/2WGtoPn
More tenant horror stories
Harry Fine is an experienced Toronto para-legal who specializes in Landlord-Tenant issues. This is one of his recent Tweets.
A tenant will not move out unless he or she is paid $60,000 in cash?
Toronto's 'professional tenant' found guilty of fraud for skipping out on rent for 2 years
CBC News
25 June 2019
James Regan, seen here in 2016, was found guilty Tuesday of three counts of fraud over $5,000 in a Toronto courtroom. (CBC)
A man sometimes referred to as Toronto's "professional tenant" was found guilty of fraud Tuesday after not paying rent at three high-end addresses since 2014.
James Regan was convicted on three counts of fraud over $5,000.
Regan, notorious for impressing landlords with his expensive clothes and professional demeanour and then refusing to pay when the rent comes due, was described as a "professional tenant" by a building manager who had dealings with him.
He was charged by police in August 2017 after complaints from several property owners.
Lucy Chik, Donna and Edward Latimer and Robin Ennis all accused Regan of not paying rent from November 2014 until November 2016.
Regan has had several brushes with the law. He's been accused in the past of hatching schemes to get free furniture and cars, although no charges were laid. He was alleged to have not paid for $18,000 worth of furniture, not returned a new car to a dealership after his credit application failed, and charged more than $700 to a man's credit card without permission.
In each case, Toronto police were contacted and in each case it was determined to be a civil matter.
He was also found not guilty in September 2017 of assaulting Chik after the landlord accused him of punching and kicking her during an argument over unpaid rent.
Regan will remain in custody until July 29 when he will appear in court for sentencing.
https://bit.ly/2WMhy6m
Rent cheats are rare but they exist so if you are going to rent your condo unit, don’t go cheap. Hire a professional property manager to find you a qualified tenant and who will look after the property on an ongoing basis.
—H. Marshall