About two dozen tenants at 80 Guestville Ave. have been fighting eviction notices at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) since June 2024, with help from the York South—Weston Tenant Union (now part of the Toronto Tenant Union).
Apart from seeking to dismiss their eviction notices, they are seeking a fine against their alleged landlord, Michael Klein, of $10,000 per tenant and rent abatements of 50 per cent for the last 12 months.
In April, they won a procedural battle at the LTB after Klein didn’t show up.
The tenants were able to request the communications between all connected parties related to their eviction as well as to the monitoring of the tenants’ association. They claim this will show their landlords acted in bad faith when serving them eviction notices and that they held “anti-union animus.”
While Klein later told TorontoToday he had “nothing to do” with the building, the LTB adjudicator, Renee Lang, held a different view.
“I’m ready to draw an inference that [Klein] and 80 Guestville are intertwined,” Lang said at the Apr. 15 hearing. “There’s got to be a connection. He’s receiving rents from tenants.”
The tenants have asked for documents going back to June 28, 2023, one year before the first eviction notice was served, based on keyword searches including, but not limited to: “under-market rent,” “York South-Weston Tenant Union (YSW)” and “Chiara Padovani,” the chair of the YSW.
Individuals working for the landlord — including those who removed tenant union posters from the building — also have to hand over their communications.
The tenants also requested all N13 eviction notices from five other buildings where Michael Klein is listed as the sole director, which the LTB granted. The tenants are trying to gather evidence to prove what they say are Klein’s pattern of bad faith evictions. These include buildings in Kitchener, Ont. (250 Frederick St. and 94 Beck St.), as well as Lindsay Apartments, Melvin Apartments and Dawes Apartments.
Targeting low-rent tenants
Ayeeza Tahir, a lawyer for the tenants, argued the contextual evidence going back further than one year would prove that the motivation behind the N13 eviction notices wasn’t capital repairs but to “displace low-rent paying tenants.”
“This is what we think is the motive behind the landlords’ lack of good faith in bringing the (eviction notices). That’s why we chose the term ‘under-market rent.’ We think it might yield results about motive.”
Chiara Padovani, with the York South-Weston Tenant Union, believes “that’s why [Klein] is targeting specifically seniors and families who have lived in the building for more than 10 years.”
“This is what renoviction is all about,” she told The Grind.
Padovani says she’s not holding her breath expecting that Klein will turn over the documents, “but 80 Guestville Apartments Inc. will have to turn over something, including all the N13s they have ever served,” she says.
Under the new Rental Renovation Licence Bylaw, landlords are required to submit all previous N13 notices along with other documentation to the municipality when applying for an order to evict for capital repairs (N13).
ACORN, a tenant advocacy group, has linked Klein to at least 21 properties in Ontario — all of which ACORN says have sent out identical N13 notices to tenants.
“This is his entire business model all across southern Ontario,” says Padovani.
Klein did not respond to The Grind’s request for comment.
The case isn’t resolved yet, and will return to the LTB in the fall.
But Padovani says these latest victories are a “testament to the strengths of the tenant association and the tenants refusing to be taken advantage of.”
“We’ve got to put a stop to the intimidation once and for all,” she says.