Ardabili v. Zak et al.

Decision 1: Leaving the LTB for Superior Court

The conventional path would have been to continue the LTB process — wait for a hearing, get an order, hope the tenants comply this time. Many landlords stay in the LTB loop for years because they assume the Board has exclusive jurisdiction over residential tenancy disputes.

We assessed the situation differently. Section 207 of the Residential Tenancies Act permits a landlord to apply to the Superior Court of Justice where the amount claimed exceeds the LTB's monetary jurisdiction. The arrears here were well above $35,000. We withdrew the pending LTB applications to avoid duplicative parallel proceedings and brought the claim directly to Superior Court.

This was the critical move — and it carried risk. The defendants immediately argued that the Superior Court had no jurisdiction, claiming the LTB has exclusive authority over residential tenancy matters. We overcame this argument by demonstrating that the LTB applications had been withdrawn (no duplicative proceedings) and by citing our own firm's prior decision, Ji Zhou et al. v. Azadeh Hashem Nia et al., 2023 ONSC 5466, which established this exact procedural pathway. The court agreed.

Decision 2: Summary Judgment Instead of Trial

Once in Superior Court, we moved for summary judgment under Rule 20 of the Rules of Civil Procedure rather than proceeding to a full trial. The documentary record was clean: the lease agreement, the N1 rent increase notices, the N4 notice of termination, the LTB interim orders, utility bills, and damage records were all on paper.

The defendants were self-represented and had no documentary evidence to support their position. In a summary judgment motion, the responding party must put their best foot forward. The tenants could not point to a single document showing they had complied with any obligation. The motion judge had everything needed to resolve the dispute without a trial.

Decision 3: Accepting the Original Rent Rate

Our client had served N1 forms to increase rent from $4,225 to $5,225 and then to $6,225 per month. The increases were above the provincial guideline. We initially sought $62,025 in arrears calculated at the increased rates, but we also presented an alternative claim of $40,250 at the original $4,225 rate.

This was deliberate. The rent increases above guideline were legally vulnerable under sections 120 and 136 of the Residential Tenancies Act. If we insisted on the higher number, the defendants would have had a genuine issue to argue — potentially defeating summary judgment and sending the case to trial. By accepting the original rate, we removed the only real defence the tenants could raise. The court found the above-guideline increases were invalid but granted judgment at the original rate. The result: a clean summary judgment with no triable issues remaining.

1. Know when to leave the LTB. The Landlord and Tenant Board is designed for routine disputes with manageable amounts. When arrears exceed $35,000, or when tenants have demonstrated they will defy LTB orders, staying at the Board is not persistence — it is a strategic error. Section 207 of the Residential Tenancies Act gives landlords the right to go to Superior Court. Use it.

2. Summary judgment is available in landlord-tenant cases. Many landlords and their lawyers assume that residential tenancy disputes must follow the LTB track exclusively. They do not. Once properly before the Superior Court, the full range of civil procedure tools is available — including summary judgment under Rule 20. Where the documentary record is clear, this can resolve a dispute in months rather than the years that the LTB process often takes.

3. Sometimes accepting a smaller number gets you paid faster. We could have fought for the higher rent rate and the additional $22,000 it would have yielded. But doing so would have created a genuine issue for trial, potentially adding another year or more to the process. By conceding the rent increase point, we obtained a clean summary judgment for $50,441 — a real, enforceable number — without the delay and expense of a trial.