Contract Law - Re: LTB

Caselaw.Ninja, Riverview Group Publishing 2021 ©
Date Retrieved:	2024-04-24
CLNP Page ID:	610
Page Categories:	[Contract Law, Leases, & Sub-Letting (LTB)], [Interference of Reasonable Enjoyment (LTB)], [Contract Law], [Maintenance Obligations (LTB)], [Payment of Rent (LTB)], [Section 34 (RTA)]
Citation:	Contract Law - Re: LTB, CLNP 610, <https://rvt.link/3x>, retrieved on 2024-04-24
Editor:	Sharvey
Last Updated:	2023/12/05

Opara v. Cook, 2008 CanLII 22923 (ON SCDC)

[6] A tenancy agreement came into effect on December 11, 2006 upon the agreement being reached between the parties and the deposit being paid. There is no real dispute that such an agreement was reached. Mr. Opara purported to unilaterally terminate that agreement on December 13, 2006. The only real issue is whether he was entitled to do so. In this regard, ss. 9(1) and 9(2) of the Tenant Protection Act are irrelevant as they deal only with when the “term” of the tenancy commences. This has nothing to do with whether either party can rescind the agreement prior to the date of occupancy. Ordinary rules of contract law apply. There is no unilateral right to rescind a contract that has been duly entered into by the parties simply because the effective date of the contract has not yet been reached.

TET-05754-10 (Re), 2010 CanLII 52145 (ON LTB)

2. In a ruling by the Divisional Court in “Opara v Cook” the Court stated “Ordinary rules of contract law apply. There is no unilateral right to rescind a contract that has been duly entered into by the parties simply because the effective date of the contract has not been reached”. In this matter the parties entered into a rental contract and the Tenant wanted to unilaterally rescind his offer to rent. The Tenant resolved his domestic situation and decided to back out of the contract. As cited above this is not permitted under the ordinary rules of contract law.

Metro Rehabilitation Centre Inc. v Mclean, 2010 CanLII 101087 (ON SCSM)

ELEMENTS OF A VALID CONTRACT

[42] A contract is an exchange of promises between the contracting parties. Although generally expressed in writing, it can be reached verbally between the parties as well. But at its heart are two or more parties exchanging such promises.

[43] As the authors of Business Law in Canada (9th Ed.) state:

“not all agreements are contracts. To qualify as a valid contract, an agreement must contain certain elements. They are:

1. Consensus. Parties to a contract must have reached a mutual agreement to commit themselves to a certain transaction. They are assumed to have negotiated the agreement from equal bargaining positions. The process by which the agreement is reached usually involves an offer and an acceptance, although consensus can be implied.

2. Consideration. There must be a commitment by each party to do something or to abstain from doing something. The consideration is the price each is willing to pay to participate in the contract.

3. Capacity. Parties to a contract must be legally capable of understanding and entering into the agreement…

4. Legality. The object and consideration involved in the agreement must be legal and not against public policy.

5. Intention. Both parties must be serious when making the agreement, and both must intend that legally enforceable obligations will result from it.”

[44] The absence of any of these elements renders an agreement unenforceable in law.

Shnier v. Begum, 2023 ONSC 5556 (CanLII)

[16] he Appellant submits that the Board’s reasons show that it neither identified nor applied the relevant principles of contractual interpretation to the question of what the renewal provision in this lease meant. These include the principles of contra preferentum, seeking an interpretation which makes commercial sense and avoids absurdity or redundancy and the requirement that it reads the terms in the context of the whole agreement.

[17] The portion of the Board’s reasons concerning the renewal provision and the timing of the Respondent’s notice to reoccupy are as follows:

1. The Tenant submits that there is an agreement that the Tenant has the option to renew the tenancy agreement for a one-year term is [sic] he exercises his right to do so. The tenancy agreement under Schedule A states “The Landlord and Tenant agree that the lease may be renewed for a further period of one year on the same terms and conditions at a mutually agreed upon rent, with the Tenant having the option to terminate the Lease by giving 60 days notice to the Landlord. The 60 days period would be counted from the last day of the month”.

2. The Tenant argues that he provided the Landlord with 60 days notice and therefore the end of the term would be November 30, 2022 and not the termination date on the notice of November 30, 2021.

3. I note that the wording of Schedule A says the lease “may” be renewed. The word suggests that this is not mandatory for either party to agree to this renewal period. This Schedule also states that it is renewed at a mutually agreed upon rent which could be contrary to the provisions of the Residential Tenancies Act for a rent increase which the Act limits.

...

[20] The Board concluded that the renewal provision was clear. It is implicit in the Board’s reasons that it did not find this term to be ambiguous. That conclusion does not amount to evidence of a failure to apply the principle of contra preferentum, that is the principle that an ambiguous term will be resolved in favour of the person who has not drafted the contract. Rather, it is the logical result of the Board’s finding that the wording was clear, and supported the finding that the parties could extend the lease, on terms satisfactory to the parties for a further year period.

[21] The Appellant also submitted that the provision as interpreted by the Board is redundant and does not make commercial sense, because the parties did not need to stipulate that they could agree to a further term. Again, I disagree. The provision regularizes and recognizes the ability of the parties to agree to an extension, to agree on rent to be paid during the period of extension (leaving aside for now the potential for unlawful rent being agreed upon given Ontario’s legislated rent regime, which is discussed below) and permitted the tenant the ability to be relieved from the lease on 60 days’ notice.

[22] In reviewing the provision and the reasons, I conclude that there is no “extricable error in law” revealed by the Board’s decision. As the Supreme Court has noted in Sattva at para. 47, “the interpretation of contracts has evolved towards a practical common-sense approach that is not dominated by technical rules of construction.” On my reading of the reasons, the Board read and understood the provision in its ordinary and grammatical meaning, required by the case law: See Sattva at para. 46.

[23] Thus, I find that the Board did not err in law in making its findings on the meaning of the lease renewal provision.

Mejia v. Cargini, 2007 CanLII 2801 (ON SCDC)

12) Section 157 of the Act gives the Tribunal “exclusive jurisdiction to determine all applications under this Act and with respect to all matters in which jurisdiction is conferred on it by this Act”.

13) Section 162 of the Act gives to the Tribunal “authority to hear and determine all questions of law and fact with respect to all matters within its jurisdiction under this Act”.

14) Having found as a fact that the landlord “harassed, threatened the tenant and interfered with the tenant’s use and enjoyment of the rental unit”, the Tribunal could grant remedies pursuant to the provisions set out in section 35 of the Act. That section provides in part that if the Tribunal determines that a landlord has done what the landlord did in this case, the Tribunal may, amongst a number of specific remedies “make any other order that it considers appropriate”.

15) Similar language was used in section 94(3)(c) of the Landlord and Tenant Act, the predecessor statute to the Tenant Protection Act, which provided that a judge to whom application was made to enforce obligations imposed under the statute, may “make such further or other orders as the judge considers appropriate”.

16) In Shaw v. Pajelle, (1985) O.J. No. 833, Montgomery J. sitting as a single judge of this Court held that section 96(3)(c) (later section 94(3)(c)) of the Landlord and Tenant Act gave the Court in a landlord and tenant proceeding, the power to award damages. In so doing, he held that the decision in Beyer et al v. Absamco Developments Ltd. et al, 1976 CANLII 733 (ON SC), 12 O.R. (2d) 768, which held to the contrary, was wrong.

17) In MacKay v. Sanghera, (2001) CarswellOnt 2349 (Div. Ct.) (e)(C), this court held that the residual clause in the Act, then section 34(1)(5) which permits the Tribunal to “make any other order that it considers appropriate” afforded a basis for an award of damages to tenants for consequential damage arising from a landlord’s breach of its obligations under the Act. See also Nesha v. Bezrukova, (2003) O.J. 3787 at para 4 (Div. Ct.)

18) Those cases and the grammatical and ordinary sense of the language giving the power to “make any other order that it considers appropriate” persuades us that the Tribunal has the power to award damages for breach of the contract of lease. To hold otherwise would be contrary to the intent of the legislature which gave to the Tribunal the jurisdiction under section 162 to which I have previously referred, to determine all matters arising out of the landlord and tenant relationship.

19) Accordingly, we find that the Tribunal was incorrect and erred in law in determining that it had no jurisdiction to award damages for breach of contact.