There is a lot of information online about the Right of First Refusal. Essentially, once the landlord gives you an N13, and you attend your hearing at the LTB months later, and the adjudicator rules in favour of the landlord and issues an order of eviction, you can exercise your Right of First Refusal.
This right allows you to move back in to your old apartment after all the renovations have been completed, and pay the same rent you were paying before. In theory, this sounds fantastic, right? You move out for a couple of months, keep your stuff in storage, and come back to a brand new fully renovated apartment while still paying your old rent!
As we have learned, this couldn't be farther from the truth. There are plenty of cases around Toronto where tenants have suffered extensively for exercising their right of first refusal. The fact is that our landlord does not have our welfare in mind - they are in the business of making money. They are a real estate investment startup! Their offering memorandum clearly stated that they want to get rid of us so that they can relist the apartments at much higher rents.
Landlords routinely rely on naive tenants who are under the impression the the right of first refusal is the answer to the renoviction problem.
Here are some of the biggest problems with the right of first refusal:
The landlord does not tell you how long the renovations will take. We have all seen apartments at Wingreen stay vacant for months, even over a year now. Our landlord can easily afford to absorb the cost of keeping units vacant. Once you're out of your unit, the landlord can take as long as they want to do the renovations, meanwhile you're scrambling to find stability in your daily life not knowing when you'll be able to go back home for months or even years.
Sneaky landlords all around the city have done sneaky things in the past like relisting the renovated apartment that a tenant has claimed right of first refusal on already, and allowing a new tenant to move in at a much higher rent. At this point even the LTB cannot evict the new tenant. And our landlord can easily afford to absorb the fines for this unethical and unlawful act of bad faith.
When you've lost your place to the right of first refusal, it is a frustrating and lengthy process to file a T5 application with the LTB to plead the case that the landlord acted in bad faith. At most you will be awarded money to compensate you for the moving costs and possibly 12 months of rent - but the long terms costs still outweigh any such reward.
The Right of Frist Refusal is better served as an absolute last resort, and even then, it is unenforceable and rocky.
As a collective, we do not want to rely on the right of first refusal. We cannot be swayed by misinformation from outside parties that sugarcoat the right of first refusal to us.
It is not in our best interests to leave in the first place. Our objective is, and remains, rejecting the renoviction entirely.
In Solidarity!
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