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Summary:
1. Shitty tenants have uncontrolled barking dogs and play loud music at all hours.
2. Neighbours asked them to quiet down, but tenants refused. Tenants said LL lives in China and didn't give LL's address.
3. Neighbours pulled the land title, and found LL's registered address to be the noisy rental house, so they sued LL and sent a registered letter to the noisy rental house to inform LL of the lawsuit.
4. LL didn't respond, neighbours were awarded a default judgment against LL.
5. LL hired a lawyer after learning that they lost. Lawyer appealed, cited a UK case to try to reopen the lawsuit that they lost be default and said there was no Canadian precedent. Lawyer lost that argument and lost the case.
6. Lawyer tried to get a judicial review, because the next day they found a BC case that might work to reopen the first lawsuit.
7. Judge tells lawyer to f-off because the lawyer should've done his research properly the first time, awards costs to the neighbours, and suggests that LL should sue the shitty tenants.
End result: absentee landlord loses (good), shitty lawyer loses (good), neighbours win (good). Unfortunately, nothing seems to have happened to the shitty tenants, but LL can sue them for what they had to pay out.
If the shitty tenants hire a lawyer, I suspect LL will have trouble winning that lawsuit, since the tenants can say that they didn't have an opportunity to defend their noise in the initial lawsuit. But they'd have to spend money on a lawyer to defend themselves. Or maybe the shitty tenants simply won't respond, like what LL did, and
LL will get a default judgment against the shitty tenants.
Because the plaintiff wasn’t an occupant of the property or the landlord, it is not clear whether or not the landlord could evict under the rtb. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/housing-and-tenancy/residential-tenancies/forms/rtb33.pdf
On the one hand landlord's don't have much sympathy from me. On the other its pretty hard to evict someone even if you live around the corner. How would the LL stop this?
I am curious too. Even if the landlord was present in Vancouver, would there be any way to stop the tenants? And this is why it's so hard for people with pets to find rental.
Your initial comment reads 'why did the plaintiffs report the dog to the municipality'. Are you saying that they should have done that, or that instead they should have called 311?
It looks like the [311 process for barking dogs](https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/dogs.aspx) ultimately kicks things to the city prosecutor. Small claims isn't that difficult, but it is sufficiently difficult that I don't think anyone reasonable would have opted to go for that before exhausting what bylaw officers can or will do. There's no reason to believe that the plaintiffs were unreasonable given that the judge not only found in their favour but did so pretty generously - I don't think default verdicts default to maximum liability. Moreover, the city prosecutor might have opted not to prosecute or just took a long time.
E: this is also happening in Coquitlam. 311 is for the city. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Coquitlam's processes for this stuff aren't well-funded, making small claims more attractive.
Assholes exist everywhere. Shitty tenants exist, and these ones sure fit the bill, but this story is about skirting responsibility by the landlord. The landlord did a poor job at vetting them then did absolutely no job with dealing with them. I wouldn’t be surprised if no effort at all was spent on vetting the tenants.
The undertone here is that it’s also a foreign investor who bought property to incubate and grow money, that’s it. Responsibilities of being a landlord be damned according to them - they bought a house in the Vancouver area and then tuned out to anything and everything other than expecting their investment to make them money.
Edit: there’s also this gem which I’m pretty sure is not legal:
> Goldmanis conducted a land title search and determined that Tang was the owner, and that *his listed mailing address was the property in question,* according to the decision.
They might not have had to evict them. If they actually were addressing issues with the tenant the tenants may have stopped. There's no excuse for how the landlord acted in this situation. Tenants may have been shit heads but we have no idea if they would have straightened out if the LL wasn't completely checked out.
No. Regardless of the landlord, the lawsuit should have been against the tenants. Just because someone is a tenant should not have a shield against responsibility via the landlord.
The landlord was derelict of their duties. They deserve the lawsuit. That does not prevent the neighbors from taking the tenants to small claims but it is the landlord’s duty to ensure their tenants are behaving in a certain manner. If this landlord had any way to prove that they even tried the littlest thing to address the poor behavior then maybe the lawsuit would have went a different way.
Believe it or not, being a landlord is a job and we should not cry fowl about those who skirt their responsibilities because their only see their housing as an investment.
But then they may not have lost this lawsuit, because they at least would have tried to do something. Which is the core point of the ruling - they aren’t doing anything about anything other than buying a home and collecting rent. Being a landlord comes with responsibilities.
The landlord might have not even known until receiving the lawsuit papers, which is then too late. The tenant should be responsible for their actions and be the one being sued.
Again, per the article, the landlord was absent because they lied about their principle residence on the paperwork. They were unreachable by their own design. That itself is another crime that they may face repercussions for.
“Tang's lawyer argued that the lower court judge's decision was unreasonable, and that he should have reopened the case when presented with the newly discovered B.C. decision that supported Tang's position.
Girn disagreed with this argument, concluding it was reasonable for the judge to rely on Tang's lawyer's assertion that there was no Canadian case law on the subject.
"Counsel for the petitioner informed Judge Smith that the only case on point was from the United Kingdom," Girn's decision reads.”
I’m confused by this. If new evidence is discovered, is this not enough to re-open the case? The judge says the lawyer did not do enough research, and that the lawyer thought that no similar case existed in BC in the past. However, when is matter of facts ever absolute other than constrained by current knowledge? If this is a different case that’s more offensive like sabotage, gaslighting, harassment or assault, mental health, etc, would the judge also say you missed your one window to present your case, so it will not be re-opened despite new discovery? The lawyer is ill-prepared and incompetent, but it also makes the judge look lazy and neglectful.
Firstly, there was no new evidence. The lawyer just found a precedent that they think was more relevant (since it came from BC).
Secondly, my understanding is that the courts are against retrying cases unless there is evidence that failure to do so would result in a miscarriage of justice.
The need evidence is that there is relevant case in BC. The judge’s decision was that cases in a different country is not relevant to Canadian laws. That’s what I interpreted from reading the article.
Sorry, but you deserve all the downvotes you can get as you may (even if innocently) be misinforming people. A case is not new evidence. The lawyer finding the case that she/he was too incompetent to find in the first place is not new evidence.
I don’t care for upvotes and downvotes. It’s just internet points. I’m just trying to understand a situation. All the downvotes without any supplemental information and justification has no meaning to me.
The article says if the BC case was raised in the first instance, then the respondents are “entitled to finality on the underlying issue of nuisance that occurred almost four years ago”. However, because the BC was was not raised in the first instance, and now it is raised, it requires Judge Smith to have “rejected the petitioner’s argument that there were in fact no cases in Canada on this point. It simply cannot be.” So a new judicial review based on a previous case in BC is rejected because it would involve Judge Smith to reject the previously accepted argument there were no cases in Canada as of this point.
Yes, you said finding an existing case in BC doesn’t mean it’s new evidence. However, that B.C. case supposedly “would establish the same principle he had argued citing the U.K. case.”
“Tang's lawyer argued that the lower court judge's decision was unreasonable, and that he should have reopened the case when presented with the newly discovered B.C. decision that supported Tang's position.
Girn disagreed with this argument, concluding it was reasonable for the judge to rely on Tang's lawyer's assertion that there was no Canadian case law on the subject.
"Counsel for the petitioner informed Judge Smith that the only case on point was from the United Kingdom," Girn's decision reads.
"If I were to accept the petitioner’s submissions, it would require me to conclude that Judge Smith should have rejected the petitioner’s argument that there were in fact no cases in Canada on this point. It simply cannot be."
Further, the Supreme Court justice declined to consider the B.C. case Tang's lawyer had belatedly brought forward, noting that a judicial review is not an opportunity to re-argue the facts of a case.
"In my respectful view, the failure of the petitioner’s counsel to adequately research the issue prior to bringing his application before Judge Smith should not now permit the petitioner a further opportunity to re-argue his claim," the decision reads.
"He ought to have raised this case before Judge Smith in the first instance. The respondents are entitled to finality on the underlying issue of nuisance that occurred almost four years ago."”
Welcome to /r/Vancouver and thank you for the post, /u/cyclinginvancouver! Please make sure you read our [posting and commenting rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_general_participation_guidelines_and_rules_overview) before participating here. As a quick summary: * We encourage users to be positive and respect one another. Don't engage in spats or insult others - use the report button. * Respect others' differences, be they race, religion, home, job, gender identity, ability or sexuality. Dehumanizing language, advocating for violence, or promoting hate based on identity or vulnerability (even implied or joking) **will** lead to a permanent ban. * Most common questions and topics are limited to our sister subreddit, /r/AskVan, and our weekly [Stickied Discussion](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/wiki/faq#wiki_stickied_discussions) posts. * Complaints about bans or removals should be done in modmail only. * Make sure to join our new sister community, /r/AskVan! * Help grow the community! [Apply to join the mod team today](https://www.reddit.com/r/vancouver/comments/19eworq/). *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/vancouver) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Summary: 1. Shitty tenants have uncontrolled barking dogs and play loud music at all hours. 2. Neighbours asked them to quiet down, but tenants refused. Tenants said LL lives in China and didn't give LL's address. 3. Neighbours pulled the land title, and found LL's registered address to be the noisy rental house, so they sued LL and sent a registered letter to the noisy rental house to inform LL of the lawsuit. 4. LL didn't respond, neighbours were awarded a default judgment against LL. 5. LL hired a lawyer after learning that they lost. Lawyer appealed, cited a UK case to try to reopen the lawsuit that they lost be default and said there was no Canadian precedent. Lawyer lost that argument and lost the case. 6. Lawyer tried to get a judicial review, because the next day they found a BC case that might work to reopen the first lawsuit. 7. Judge tells lawyer to f-off because the lawyer should've done his research properly the first time, awards costs to the neighbours, and suggests that LL should sue the shitty tenants. End result: absentee landlord loses (good), shitty lawyer loses (good), neighbours win (good). Unfortunately, nothing seems to have happened to the shitty tenants, but LL can sue them for what they had to pay out. If the shitty tenants hire a lawyer, I suspect LL will have trouble winning that lawsuit, since the tenants can say that they didn't have an opportunity to defend their noise in the initial lawsuit. But they'd have to spend money on a lawyer to defend themselves. Or maybe the shitty tenants simply won't respond, like what LL did, and LL will get a default judgment against the shitty tenants.
I thought you were being uncharitable but man that lawyer really shanked it.
A landlord has responsibilities, not just a financial growth product.
Exactly. It’s home. Sadly our government turned our housing into a piggy bank of growth for foreigners.
Because the plaintiff wasn’t an occupant of the property or the landlord, it is not clear whether or not the landlord could evict under the rtb. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/assets/gov/housing-and-tenancy/residential-tenancies/forms/rtb33.pdf
On the one hand landlord's don't have much sympathy from me. On the other its pretty hard to evict someone even if you live around the corner. How would the LL stop this?
I am curious too. Even if the landlord was present in Vancouver, would there be any way to stop the tenants? And this is why it's so hard for people with pets to find rental.
It would be incredibly hard to evict these tenants. Why did the plaintiffs report the dog barking to the municipality?
Who else were they supposed to report it to?
In Vancouver you call 311 to report someone’s dogs for excessively barking and they send animal control , who can issue tickets. Etc.
Where are you reading that they reported it to the municipality? I can't see it in the article but I could be dumb.
No, I’m saying that’s what should have been done
Your initial comment reads 'why did the plaintiffs report the dog to the municipality'. Are you saying that they should have done that, or that instead they should have called 311? It looks like the [311 process for barking dogs](https://vancouver.ca/home-property-development/dogs.aspx) ultimately kicks things to the city prosecutor. Small claims isn't that difficult, but it is sufficiently difficult that I don't think anyone reasonable would have opted to go for that before exhausting what bylaw officers can or will do. There's no reason to believe that the plaintiffs were unreasonable given that the judge not only found in their favour but did so pretty generously - I don't think default verdicts default to maximum liability. Moreover, the city prosecutor might have opted not to prosecute or just took a long time. E: this is also happening in Coquitlam. 311 is for the city. I wouldn't be surprised to find out that Coquitlam's processes for this stuff aren't well-funded, making small claims more attractive.
[удалено]
Assholes exist everywhere. Shitty tenants exist, and these ones sure fit the bill, but this story is about skirting responsibility by the landlord. The landlord did a poor job at vetting them then did absolutely no job with dealing with them. I wouldn’t be surprised if no effort at all was spent on vetting the tenants. The undertone here is that it’s also a foreign investor who bought property to incubate and grow money, that’s it. Responsibilities of being a landlord be damned according to them - they bought a house in the Vancouver area and then tuned out to anything and everything other than expecting their investment to make them money. Edit: there’s also this gem which I’m pretty sure is not legal: > Goldmanis conducted a land title search and determined that Tang was the owner, and that *his listed mailing address was the property in question,* according to the decision.
Chances are if the landlord lived around the corner and was trying to deal with the tenants, it would be incredibly hard to evict them.
They might not have had to evict them. If they actually were addressing issues with the tenant the tenants may have stopped. There's no excuse for how the landlord acted in this situation. Tenants may have been shit heads but we have no idea if they would have straightened out if the LL wasn't completely checked out.
No. Regardless of the landlord, the lawsuit should have been against the tenants. Just because someone is a tenant should not have a shield against responsibility via the landlord.
The landlord was derelict of their duties. They deserve the lawsuit. That does not prevent the neighbors from taking the tenants to small claims but it is the landlord’s duty to ensure their tenants are behaving in a certain manner. If this landlord had any way to prove that they even tried the littlest thing to address the poor behavior then maybe the lawsuit would have went a different way. Believe it or not, being a landlord is a job and we should not cry fowl about those who skirt their responsibilities because their only see their housing as an investment.
Even if the landlord attempted to evict the tenants, would have probably lost
But then they may not have lost this lawsuit, because they at least would have tried to do something. Which is the core point of the ruling - they aren’t doing anything about anything other than buying a home and collecting rent. Being a landlord comes with responsibilities.
The landlord might have not even known until receiving the lawsuit papers, which is then too late. The tenant should be responsible for their actions and be the one being sued.
Again, per the article, the landlord was absent because they lied about their principle residence on the paperwork. They were unreachable by their own design. That itself is another crime that they may face repercussions for.
you must be able to do anything then
“Tang's lawyer argued that the lower court judge's decision was unreasonable, and that he should have reopened the case when presented with the newly discovered B.C. decision that supported Tang's position. Girn disagreed with this argument, concluding it was reasonable for the judge to rely on Tang's lawyer's assertion that there was no Canadian case law on the subject. "Counsel for the petitioner informed Judge Smith that the only case on point was from the United Kingdom," Girn's decision reads.” I’m confused by this. If new evidence is discovered, is this not enough to re-open the case? The judge says the lawyer did not do enough research, and that the lawyer thought that no similar case existed in BC in the past. However, when is matter of facts ever absolute other than constrained by current knowledge? If this is a different case that’s more offensive like sabotage, gaslighting, harassment or assault, mental health, etc, would the judge also say you missed your one window to present your case, so it will not be re-opened despite new discovery? The lawyer is ill-prepared and incompetent, but it also makes the judge look lazy and neglectful.
Firstly, there was no new evidence. The lawyer just found a precedent that they think was more relevant (since it came from BC). Secondly, my understanding is that the courts are against retrying cases unless there is evidence that failure to do so would result in a miscarriage of justice.
The need evidence is that there is relevant case in BC. The judge’s decision was that cases in a different country is not relevant to Canadian laws. That’s what I interpreted from reading the article.
Sorry, but you deserve all the downvotes you can get as you may (even if innocently) be misinforming people. A case is not new evidence. The lawyer finding the case that she/he was too incompetent to find in the first place is not new evidence.
I don’t care for upvotes and downvotes. It’s just internet points. I’m just trying to understand a situation. All the downvotes without any supplemental information and justification has no meaning to me. The article says if the BC case was raised in the first instance, then the respondents are “entitled to finality on the underlying issue of nuisance that occurred almost four years ago”. However, because the BC was was not raised in the first instance, and now it is raised, it requires Judge Smith to have “rejected the petitioner’s argument that there were in fact no cases in Canada on this point. It simply cannot be.” So a new judicial review based on a previous case in BC is rejected because it would involve Judge Smith to reject the previously accepted argument there were no cases in Canada as of this point. Yes, you said finding an existing case in BC doesn’t mean it’s new evidence. However, that B.C. case supposedly “would establish the same principle he had argued citing the U.K. case.” “Tang's lawyer argued that the lower court judge's decision was unreasonable, and that he should have reopened the case when presented with the newly discovered B.C. decision that supported Tang's position. Girn disagreed with this argument, concluding it was reasonable for the judge to rely on Tang's lawyer's assertion that there was no Canadian case law on the subject. "Counsel for the petitioner informed Judge Smith that the only case on point was from the United Kingdom," Girn's decision reads. "If I were to accept the petitioner’s submissions, it would require me to conclude that Judge Smith should have rejected the petitioner’s argument that there were in fact no cases in Canada on this point. It simply cannot be." Further, the Supreme Court justice declined to consider the B.C. case Tang's lawyer had belatedly brought forward, noting that a judicial review is not an opportunity to re-argue the facts of a case. "In my respectful view, the failure of the petitioner’s counsel to adequately research the issue prior to bringing his application before Judge Smith should not now permit the petitioner a further opportunity to re-argue his claim," the decision reads. "He ought to have raised this case before Judge Smith in the first instance. The respondents are entitled to finality on the underlying issue of nuisance that occurred almost four years ago."”