Joe McGinty and Taylor Pace | GuelphToday
Nov 9, 2024
Michael Klein may be 'a ghost,' as one angry tenant calls him, but a large group of people in Ontario have had their lives thrown into turmoil by renovictions tied to the Toronto businessman
"Kerry Lichty has had a tough year.
Her declining eyesight has been getting worse and her son, who she lives with in her Guelph apartment, is going through chemotherapy following a cancer diagnosis.
Now she wonders where they will live.
Over the summer, an N13 notice was delivered to her door. A harbinger of the struggles to come, it will eventually force her and her son out of their home, and it is pushing her over the edge.
Brant Avenue tenant Kerry Lichty.
“I’m on anxiety pills because I’ve been having panic attacks,” she said. “Can we work something out so I don’t have to live on the street with my sick son?”
She said she doesn't have a history of panic attacks or anxiety, and this is the first time she's been on medication. Said she was able to brush things off but the N13 on top of everything was just too much to handle.
An N13 is a legal notice to end the tenancy for renovation purposes, though many legal experts and tenant advocates argue it is often used as a loophole for bad actor landlords to turn over tenants, often resulting in new tenants who will pay a significantly higher rent.
Dubbed a 'renoviction,' the practice of people being forced out of their apartments by landlords who often end up doing minor renovations to the property is becoming more commonplace.
It has become so prevalent that some municipalities, have or are looking at instituting bylaws to police the practice.
Lichty and her neighbours aren’t the only ones in trouble.
Many tenants across Ontario in certain rent-controlled buildings are being told they have to leave for extensive renovations, and fear when they return, their unit will be rented out.
While many of the buildings where this is happening to this group are owned by different corporations, there is one thing tying these particular tenants together: Michael Klein."