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RTA - Orders. Miller Estate v. Arguelles [facts must stay same throughout eviction proceeding]
In Miller Estate v. Arguelles (Ont CA, 2026) the Ontario Court of Appeal allowed a tenant's RTA appeal, this respecting s.48 ['Notice, landlord personally, etc., requires unit' (personal possession)] and s.71.1 ['Application based on certain notice' (supporting affidavit)] issues.
The court holds that the facts that (might) justify a notice of termination (here, a s.48 'personal possession' notice of termination) must continue throughout the eviction proceeding until final order:[33] The plain language of s. 48(1) also requires that the prescribed criteria permitting the termination of a tenancy must still be in place at the time of termination. It is an error for the Board to consider the relevant circumstances only at the time of the delivery of the N12 notice: Elkins, at para. 71.
[34] A tenancy is not terminated until the requisite notice period has expired or until terminated by order. As a result, the landlord must meet the statutory criteria on the termination date on the N12 notice, if the notice is valid and not contested by the tenant. If it is contested, the criteria must be met on the date when the tenancy is terminated by order of the Board or by the court after all appeals have been exhausted: see, for example, Elkins, at para. 71-72; Hefzi, at paras. 22-28; Schuld v. Li, at paras. 28-31.
[35] To hold otherwise would defeat the protective legislative purpose informing these provisions. In keeping with its remedial nature and tenant protection focus, the RTA circumscribes the termination of tenancies, focusing on the security of tenure for tenants and preventing unlawful evictions: White, at para. 10; Elkins, at para. 42; Ricketts, at paras. 97-99, per Nakatsuru J., dissenting, but not on these points. Section 48 represents a clear exception to the regime that protects against no fault evictions: Slapsys, at para. 12. Reading this section in the context of the RTA as a whole, the specific purpose of the exceptional provisions in this section should be read as to limit the circumstances in which a landlord may give a notice to end a tenancy: Schuld v. Niu, 2019 BCSC 949, at para. 17.
[36] The potential for abuse of the landlord’s own use provisions by unscrupulous landlords is obvious. For the tenant’s protection, it is therefore crucial that the landlord seeking to terminate a tenancy under s. 48(1) meets all of the statutory criteria on the actual date of termination. . Hughes v. Mehraban
In Hughes v. Mehraban (Div Court, 2023) the Divisional Court considered an appeal from an LTB consent order:[3] While s. 210(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, provides that an appeal lies to the Divisional Court from a decision of the LTB, but only on a question of law, s. 133(a) of the Courts of Justice Act stipulates that no appeal applies lies from a consent order without leave of the court: Ravadgar v. Kaftroudi, 2023 ONSC 5471, at paras. 11 to 19.
[4] Accordingly, leave to appeal is required in the present case, and the Notice of Appeal in this case must therefore be quashed.
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