So, You're Getting Renovicted - Now What?

[00:00:00]So for today's video, I'll talk about what you should do if you find out that you're getting re-evicted. And by re-evicted, I mean that you receive a notice from your landlord saying that you're being evicted because the landlord wants to do supposed extensive renovations. And as I've discussed many times in my other videos, this is a common tactic that landlords use to evade rent control obligations in Ontario. And in general, I think that the advice in this video could apply to all sorts of funny business that your landlord might be trying to do against the tenants in your building. And if you need to come together with other tenants and organize some sort of legal resistance against your landlord, then this video may be helpful to you. Now, the first piece of advice that I'd give you after you get whatever upsetting notice you've received from your landlord is go and knock on the doors of some of your neighbors. And specifically, you can start with whichever neighbors you have who you are most familiar with. And that doesn't necessarily mean that you've ever had a detailed conversation with them before.

[00:00:59]Maybe you've just seen that particular neighbor going to take out the garbage or you've met them going in and out of the building before. Or it could be someone you meet every day on your way to work in the parking garage. And when you strike up a conversation with these people, you can mention whatever notice it is that you received from your landlord. And you can just make small talk with them about it. Just ask them if they received a similar notice and you know, just mention you're kind of concerned about it. And since you both have the same landlord, there's a very good chance that the other person is, you know, very interested in knowing what's actually in the notice. Because if they received one themselves, then you know, you can talk about it and try and process the information that's in the notice together.

[00:01:36]And if they haven't received the same notice, then they might be concerned or interested in what's actually in the notice because they would be thinking to themselves, "Oh, I might receive the exact same notice pretty soon." Now, the vast majority of people would be fairly receptive to you trying to have a conversation like this with them.

[00:01:53]But of course, some people are really crazy and some people have extreme anxiety about stuff like this. So, if you try to talk about it with them, they'll get really angry at you. And really, the bigger point of these interactions is that if you strike up a conversation with, you know, four or five other tenants like this, you will probably find that, you know, at least half of them are very receptive and will talk to you about this subject. And if the person seems fairly friendly and receptive to your conversation, you can suggest the possibility of having another conversation in the future. And if they're receptive to that idea, then you just made one contact in the building who you can get information from about what's going on. And if you meet someone who's particularly enthusiastic, you can possibly try and recruit them to go do outreach to meet even more people. Now, since you don't know these people very well, establishing trust can be potentially difficult. And if you've watched some of my other videos, I've talked at length about the absolutely insane, manipulative, and inappropriate behavior that some other tenants exhibit. So, all the while while you're interacting with these people, you can be thinking in the back of your mind about which of these people actually seems to have their head screwed on right. And over time, I think you should make it your goal to get at least five contacts in the building who are mentally stable people who have their head screwed on right, who you can get information from about whatever is going on with the you and your landlord.

[00:03:13]And once you think you found one of these people, you should definitely try to get their email, their phone number, and then you can keep in touch with them to exchange news and information about what's going on, if there's any important dates or deadlines, or maybe you did some legal research on your own and you want to share it with them. Now, something else that you may experience in a situation like this is a whole bunch of activist organizations who will come around and be involved in your situation. And I've talked at length in my other videos about my experiences with those organizations, and I've highlighted the fact that these activist organizations can really be a mixed bag.

[00:03:47]And in some cases, I think you could really question whether they're a net benefit at all. In my experience going through a renoviction, we had a number of these different organizations that came around our building and they handed out all sorts of flyers and organized some meetings and things. And initially anyway, the information that I saw from these organizations was extremely positive. Since at that point, I had never really thought about tenancy law and the rules around you know, renovations and stuff like that.

[00:04:14]However, I would say it was just that.

[00:04:17]It was introductory information and in subsequent meetings and interactions, a lot of it just seemed like the same you know, introductory information repeated over and over again. And a lot of these activist organizations emphasized the idea that their expertise was in organizing. But to be honest, this was one of the most disorganized group of individuals who I've ever met in my life. Now in general, I wouldn't necessarily say that if some of these organizations come around that you know, you should just not never ever join them. I do think that maybe going to some of their meetings could actually be a good networking opportunity to meet other people who live in the same building as you who are in the same situation.

[00:04:55]And then you can meet those people one-on-one and if you really vibe well at the meeting, you can maybe share some personal contact information and you can do your own organizing with that individual outside of the context of all of these activist organizations. However, another pattern that I noticed is that a lot of these activist organizations seem to really like to maintain control over the organizing activities. So if you go to one of the meetings and you suggest an idea like let's call a lawyer, let's form this meeting, let's do this event or something, they'll say, "Oh, don't don't don't worry about doing all that. You know, we'll do that. We'll help you. We don't want you to be alone." But the problem that I consistently observe with that is that they would say, "Oh, don't worry.

[00:05:38]We'll handle that for you." And then they just wouldn't do it. Or there would be some sort of personality conflict among the leadership in these organizations. And at the same time, a lot of the people in these organizations do not physically live in the same building as you, so they are not nearly as invested in your legal case as you are and the other people who are in your building who share your same fate. And if you do end up choosing some sort of leader for your group, make sure that that leader who is you know, chairing your meetings and such, make sure that that person actually physically lives in your building. Oh, and the other thing that I noticed about these activist organizations is that it's very common for them to be voting for a large number of different activist issues. And more often than not, I found that when they recruit you into their organization on the basis of that they're going to advocate on behalf of your issue, they will also conscript you to advocate for other issues that have nothing to do with what you may be trying to advocate for in your building.

[00:06:38]And in fact, the organization as a whole may even be advocating for some stuff that has nothing to do with your situation and is also something that you do not agree with. Because in my case, one of these activist organizations who came in and was early on handing out tons of flyers and giving out information on rent evictions, this organization really really did not like one particular political candidate. And on that point, I didn't necessarily disagree with their political stance, but every additional wedge issue that you attach your cause to is another thing that you can do to lose public support. Because in reality, no reasonable person should support rent evictions. It's a politically neutral issue. And I consistently heard a lot of feel-good phrases from these activist organizations like you know, we need to stick together and the power of community and the power of organizing and fighting together, but in reality, these were some of the least cohesive and least unified organizations that I've ever seen. Now, in our building, a lot of tenants were very receptive to the idea of protesting. However, in my case, I'm a huge fan of talking to a lawyer because lawyers actually know how the law works. And if you do eventually get evicted, it'll be because of a legal order. And if you go to your tenant hearing and tell the adjudicator that you did a bunch of protesting, uh they probably won't care. And it probably won't help you win your legal case. In fact, the landlord might just try to claim that you were harassing them. Now, lawyers have a reputation for being uh extremely expensive, and that is in fact true. It's not uncommon to say pay, you know, four or five hundred dollars per hour uh to talk to a lawyer, especially if the lawyer has a very uh special focus on something. Now, in my case, when I called around uh to get some quotes for how much a lawyer would charge, um I was quoted uh $350 per hour to talk to the lawyer and $250 per hour to talk to the paralegal. But, having said that, uh if you're well prepared and you ask good questions and you have all your documentation ready and stuff, and for a lot of these very expensive consultations, uh you can likely forward some information, say via email, to the lawyer, and the lawyer will look at it offline, maybe do a bit of research, maybe they'll talk to an another lawyer if there's some really specific uh you know, something they haven't seen there before. And then later, when you actually have a call with that lawyer, uh assuming that you've thought really hard to make a really good detailed list of questions so you're not uh you're not just wasting the lawyer's time because, you know, you're if you're spending $250, $300 per hour, you're you should ask very specific, pointed questions, then you might actually get very good value for that one hour of time that you say spent, you know, 350 bucks on. And I mentioned before how it's a good idea to uh have networked with some other people in the building who are facing the same issue as you, and in that case, uh you could do even better because you could get uh questions from them, and you could maybe have one person in the group uh who would be the designated person to, you know, talk to the lawyer and ask the questions. So, one person could go around in your little group of uh you know, five people in the building who get along very well, make a list of questions, and everyone puts in $75 or something, and then you can pay that, you know, $350 an hour to ask a lawyer a bunch of really detailed specific questions about your case, and then that person can just, you know, broadcast the findings back to the group. And if any of you in the group are very good at doing you know, legal research on your own, then that could get you very, very far because if you can ask the lawyer, you know, some really pointed questions, the lawyer can point you to other relevant parts of the law that you may miss or they may say, you know, go read this section or whatever, and they'll give you some pointers for your own research. And since lawyers are in the business of making money, it is very likely that they will probably, you know, try and upsell you some services.

[00:10:20]They'll say, we have this, you know, kind of package with 10 hours for $5,000 or something, and we'll do this other thing, and we'll set up a mailing list and stuff. And maybe that could be appropriate worth it for you, but I would say that even just spending one hour of kind of ad hoc consultation with a lawyer, that is very likely to be extremely worth it for you if you ask good questions, and if you come to the meeting very, very prepared. But, if you don't have any questions prepared, and you come to the meeting, you know, without any documentation, and the lawyer is asking you, you know, questions about your case, and you keep saying, I don't know, then that's just wasting the lawyer's time, and you're probably also going to be wasting your own money. Oh, and something else that a lot of people are not aware of is that for a lot of these very expensive professional services like consultation, a lot of them will give you a free 15-minute consultation. And I can tell you from experience from interacting with a number of different professional consultants that if you are very prepared, and you ask good questions, and you seem like someone who's, you know, not just going to waste their time, and also you mentioned that you'd be prepared to pay for, you know, say an hour, uh depending on what the rate is. Very often, a lot of these free 15-minute consultations can end up being much longer than that. And again, as I said before, a lot of that is going to hinge on uh whether the lawyer feels like you are wasting their time or not.

[00:11:46]So, make sure you come to your meeting with all of your documentation ready, and, you know, ideally, uh try to do a bit of research on your own.

[00:11:53]And obviously, you're not a lawyer yourself. That's why you're calling one for consultation. So, it's going to be very difficult for you to, you know, understand uh the answers that maybe come up with if you just Google this. But even if you do something like that, you can at least use that as a starting point for the conversation with the lawyer. Just say, "Hey, I Googled this, and I found all these, you know, confusing and conflicting things on the internet. Uh what do you think about that?" And then the lawyer can point you in the right direction. And something that I really think we should have done in our rent eviction case, but we did not, uh was have a small paid session with a lawyer where, um you know, some tenants can uh submit or attend that meeting uh just to ask some uh hard questions.

[00:12:31]And initially, I thought that that was something that we were planning to do, uh but because of all the disorganization of our organizing, uh unfortunately, that never happened.