July 2017 LTB Meeting Summary

Summary: those present rejected the landlord's offer and there will be a full Above Guideline Increase (AGI) Hearing in the future (probably October).

Details: The rest of this email is the boring stuff, the above sentence is all you need to know. The rest of this is how the decision to go to a hearing was made.

There were approximately 27 affected tenants present, plus two who were not covered under the application and therefore were not allowed to be present. A tenant from one of the Christian Horizons apartments was allowed to stay although he isn't directly named in the application. There were about 187 proxies submitted as well.

This year the process was different from last year. Today's meeting was a Case Management Hearing Process with the purpose of tenants asking questions of the landlord and perhaps negotiating a settlement without having to go to a full hearing. As was true in the past, all present must agree upon the negotiated settlement or there would be a hearing and anything negotiated would be set aside and the final results from the adjudicator would be final.

The Guideline Increase for 2017 is 1.5% and for 2018 it will be 1.8%.

The numbers I give from now on in apply to me and probably the majority of people whose leases renew between April 1 and Dec. 31, who have been at IPT for more than two years. Those with leases renewing between Jan 1 and Mar. 31 will have slightly different numbers and those who moved in later in 2016 may have different numbers as well since they only have to pay for improvements made after they moved in. They may also contain mistakes of arithmetic and fact. So these numbers in this email are a rough guideline and if you want to know exactly what you are facing, you can phone the LTB and ask for the numbers applying to your apartment.

The landlord was asking for 3.14% for capital expenditures and .13% for increase in taxes. As well, tenants who have been in the building since 2015 or prior are still set to receive the .28% increase from the 2016 AGI ruling.

Because rent cannot be increased to cover Capital Expenditures more than 3% per year over the guideline amount, those of us who renew between April 1 and December 1 are facing an increase for 2017 of 4.63% and in 2018 of 2.08%

There was a detailed and lengthy discussion over the taxes. The landlord had appealed the assessment covering 2013 - 2016 and has received a reduction. The process for flowing that reduction through to the tenants who have paid more is complicated and run by the City. If the landlord's rent goes down by more than 2.5% we'll hear from the City of Ottawa, probably in late 2018 with a notice of how much our rent will be reduced to reflect the over payment on taxes. If the reduction is less than 2.5% I believe I understand that we get nothing back. 

We then moved on to discuss the capital expenditures. One group and 2 individuals had gone over the application in great detail and they all had found things they felt should not be included. The landlord's lawyer was asked about some of these items and it was obvious from the responses that he felt the items were allowed and the group felt the items were not. 

The tenants were given time to discuss among ourselves and the general feeling was to hear the best offer from the Landlord's Lawyer and if it was reasonable, accept. The landlord had already dropped the claim for .13% for the taxes.

Two offers were made, either 2.8% over one year, or 1.5% for each of 2 years.

The first offer, for me, would become in 2017 4.5% and 1.88% for 2018 for a total of 6.38%. The second offer would be 3.28% in 2017 and 3.3% in 2018 for a total of 6.58%.  Before the negotiations, I was facing 6.71% making the best deal being offered was .33% lower over 2 years.  

There was no question the group wasn't in favour of the deals offered and so we will be going to a full hearing in the future.