Tenant Rights in Toronto

July 21, 2016 3:54 PM

I live in Toronto. My two roommates and I signed a lease to begin in September 2014, and to end in August 2016. My roommates are not interested in extending the lease, and have already found new places to live. However, I am interested in staying, and have told the landlords so. Do I have any right to stay?

My landlords told me that if I can't find two new roommates to start in September by the end of this weekend, they will sign the lease with a different group of three (i.e., force me out). Is this allowed? If my original roommates and I each had a separate lease, then I think I would legally be allowed to say on a month-to-month basis. But, since we were co-tenants on the same lease, I don't know that this applies to me.

I've been trying to contact the Toronto Tenant Hotline for two days, but have not been able to get through.

Frustratingly, I am defending my PhD next Friday in New York, and would prefer not to have to worry about finding new roommates until I am done. But they are not willing to wait on this, so needless to say, I have gotten very little work done.

I know that you are not my lawyer, and that any advice given here is general advice, not legal advice. If you have any suggestions on who I could contact, that would be much appreciated.

posted by tickingclock to Law & Government (6 answers total)

You don't have a right to stay on. Your roommates gave notice to the landlord that they weren't extending the lease...right? The only way I can see there being a loophole is if they neglected to do that. Then you could totally screw over the people who signed a lease until X date and left on X date...

Or, since the odds of anything but "piss off" from the roommates who have found new places is really low -- keep in mind there can be a difference between what the Landlord-Tenant Act says and how these things play out in real life; it might be technically illegal for your landlord to put your stuff on the sidewalk without trying to contact you, but that doesn't help when you go find all your stuff on the sidewalk on a Friday night and the cops are not feeling sympathetic -- you can piss off the landlords and force them to evict you. If memory serves, you'd be responsible for some additional costs on top of the rent owed if you end up going through the eviction process.

I'd box your stuff up ASAP and look for a storage unit and cheap AirBNB. The only other thing I can think of working would be to offer to stay on as a month-to-month tenant and pay the entirety of the rent. I don't think the landlord would be required to agree -- again, presumably the roommates told the landlord they would be leaving, and while s/he was comfortable with all three of you coming up with the rent it might be a different story with just you, but if you can pay the full fare, it's easier for the landlord than finding new tenants, so it might be a tempting offer.

Here is a page with some useful info on roommates and leases -- it's sort of a random blog page but I can vouch for it; the author is a for-real Ottawa attorney who I used (with success) when having problems with a landlord maybe fifteen years ago.
posted by kmennie at 4:33 PM on July 21, 2016

If you have any financil ability to do so, consider paying the full rent for a couple extra weeks so you can stay in the apartment until after you defend your dissertation. That would be a reasonable request to make of the landlord.
posted by cacao at 5:26 PM on July 21, 2016

As I read the post, you currently have a lease that extends through August 31, is that correct?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 6:24 PM on July 21, 2016

Response by poster: As I read the post, you currently have a lease that extends through August 31, is that correct?

Yes, exactly. So, I'll have the month of August to look for a new place (or new roommates) if I have to.

Meanwhile, I got a reply from the Tenant Hotline:

“Do I have any right to stay?”

Yes. The lease would automatically roll forward on a month-to-month basis as long as one of the people on the original lease remains living there paying rent. You would just be able to get replacement roommates.

Sometimes landlords try to pressure you into signing a new agreement or they try to argue that you can’t bring in replacement roommates, but this is not accurate. You’ll be able to stay as long as you’re on the original lease and the rent is still paid.

Good Luck!

I've had some great responses to my ad so far, though, so I'm fairly confident that I will have two roommates by the end of the weekend. If I don't, though, I'll write an e-mail to my landlords that I have every right to stay and continue to look for two roommates.
posted by tickingclock at 6:37 PM on July 21, 2016 [2 favorites]

One thing that's not clear about your question though is whether you are willing to take the risk of not having roommates by the end of August and then being on the hook for the FULL rent (not just your third).

Because I'm pretty sure that's what will happen, and also what the Tenant Hotline is saying. The lease almost certainly specifies the rent for the entire place, and just because you are one of three names on the lease does not mean you are only responsible for one third of the rent.

So basically yes, you do have every right to stay and look for two new roommates. But if you fail to find two new rommates, the landlord has every right to show up on September 1 and say "Give me the rent for all three rooms please."
posted by 256 at 10:34 AM on July 22, 2016 [2 favorites]

Just as further clarification: The laws primarily limit what clauses are legally enforceable on a leasing contract, so your actual lease is of paramount importance here (in the somewhat unlikely case where it grants you more than the legal minimum rights).

However, I'm pretty sure that it is both legal and bog-standard for joint leases to indicate that, if one or more co-signors give proper notice of intent to vacate and other signors opt not to, then the remaining signors assume full responsibility for 100% of the lease including rent. Proper notice is almost universally 60 days so, assuming your roommates gave notice at the start of July, your landlord is already being unnecessarily nice by giving you extra time to make your decision as far as September is concerned.
posted by 256 at 4:18 PM on July 22, 2016