Zeng v Howarth

Tenant wins · Toronto · 2023-11-30

Adjudicator

Trish Carson

Dispute

Personal Use

Notice

Personal use (N12)

Landlord

J.H.Z.

Tenant

A.H.

Landlord rep

Sean Gosnell, Jessica Karban

Tenant rep

Allan Strader

What happened

The landlord, Jun Hui Zeng, applied for an order to terminate the tenancy and evict the tenant, Adrian Howarth, because the landlord in good faith requires possession of the rental unit for the purpose of residential occupation for at least one year. The landlord initially served an N12 notice in October 2020, but later discovered that the rental unit was owned by a corporation, which is not allowed to serve an N12 notice under the Residential Tenancies Act. The landlord then arranged to transfer a 5% ownership interest in the property to himself in order to meet the requirements under the Act to serve an N12 notice.

The ruling

The landlord's application is dismissed. The tenant is ordered to return the one month's compensation paid by the landlord by December 7, 2023, and will owe interest at 7% annually on any outstanding balance after that date.