Sabaratnam v Patel

Tenant wins · North Bay · 2025-11-17

Adjudicator

Amanda Kovats

Dispute

Damage to Property, Non-payment of Rent, Utilities

Landlord

S.S., S.N.

Tenant

H.B.P.

What happened

The Landlords filed a request to review a previous order (LTB-L-010741-25) which had dismissed their claim for unpaid utility bills. The original adjudicator refused to consider the utility bills because the Landlords had uploaded them to the wrong file on the Tribunals Ontario Portal (TOP) and failed to disclose them properly to the Tenant. The Landlords argued this was a technical error and a serious error of law by the Board. The Review Member examined whether the original member's decision to exclude the evidence was an unreasonable exercise of discretion.

The ruling

The Landlord's request for a review of the order dated September 8, 2025, is denied. The original order remains confirmed and unchanged. The Board found no serious error in the original adjudicator's decision to exclude utility bill evidence that was uploaded to the wrong case file, as admitting it would have been procedurally unfair to the Tenant.