What to know
- Tenants at 24 Mabelle Ave. delivered a giant prop void cheque to their landlord as an act of protest against a recent move which saw the landlord stop accepting rent payments by cheque in favour of an online system.
- The Toronto Tenant Union says the change disproportionately negatively affects seniors, newcomers and long-term tenants, and alleges it was made without tenant agreement despite existing lease terms allowing cheque payments.
- Tenants claim some residents who continued paying by cheque received eviction notices for non-payment and say they plan to challenge the policy before the Landlord and Tenant Board.
A group of Etobicoke-based tenants has given their landlord a massive prop void cheque to protest a one-sided rent payment change they say is negatively impacting residents, many of whom are seniors.
Residents at 24 Mabelle Ave. marched into the building’s management office last week to deliver a lottery-style oversized void cheque on behalf of multiple tenants.
According to Toronto Tenant Union Co-chair Bruno Dobrusin, the demonstration occurred after the building manager, Compten Property Management, and landlord Wilstar Management abruptly changed rent payment procedures, refusing to take payments by cheque.
“There [are] a lot of working-class seniors in the building from probably the 1960s. A lot of people pay by cheque, and they’ve been paying by cheque for many, many years,” Dobrusin told Now Toronto.
He says the union also worries the move might be a retaliation after tenants mobilized to fight an Above Guideline Rent Increase (AGI) earlier this year.
Building residents struggle with procedural change
As explained by Dobrusin, many of the building residents are seniors, newcomers or long-term tenants, who have been living in the building and paying rent by cheque for decades. He says navigating the change and an online payment system can be tricky, especially for senior residents.
“People of a certain age have much more difficulty entering these portals, logging in, then logging their payments,” he explained. “They need to make arrangements with the bank, they often don’t even have credit cards.”
“On top of that, the landlord charges a fee for using the credit card if you pay your rent with a credit card on [their] portal. So it’s actually making it quite difficult for people that, for many many years, were doing it in a simple way: go downstairs, give your check.”
Dobrusin also alleges the change was made without proper notice to, or formal acceptance from, the tenants. He says their rental agreements originally stated cheques were accepted.
“That’s in a contract. You would need both sides to agree to a change like that, and the landlord unilaterally doing it is not following the law.”
Landlord allegedly threatened to evict tenants
Following the procedural change, Dobrusin said the landlord has threatened to evict some tenants who had continued to pay their rent via cheque, claiming the payments were not received.
“[There] is a couple, seniors, who are in their 90s [and have] been paying their rent for more than 10 years that they live in this building, by cheque. They also have limited English language skills. They didn’t understand that the cheques were not being accepted.”
After the couple continued to send their cheques to management, they allegedly received a letter from the landlord claiming they would be evicted through the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) for not paying their rent.
Upon responding to the letter, management allegedly said the eviction could be withdrawn if they agreed to pay late payment fees through the building’s online portal.
“[This is] scandalous. Why should they pay any extra when they were doing their side of the bargain?” Dobrusin questioned, reinforcing that the payments were being sent through cheques.
Tenants fight procedure change
According to Dobrusin, tenants have still not received a response from the building owners or managers after their demonstration last week.
They are currently planning to take their case to the LTB, as they claim the landlord violated their rights by changing the payment method without their agreement, even though their original contract stated cheques were accepted.
“Collectively, we’re preparing this complaint between all the tenants, and also we’re reaching out to other buildings that are owned by the same landlord because we suspect that this may be happening [elsewhere] as well,” he said.
In addition, Dobrusin said the union is planning to bring another large cheque to management next month if they don’t receive a response.
“We’ll do it again because we have to draw attention that we’re not just talking about the form of payment. These are people’s rights, and also people’s homes,” he added.
Now Toronto reached out to Compten Property Management and Wilstar Management, but did not receive a response before publication.
