I rented a town house in Mississauga in June of 2010 and in August of the same summer during a rain storm, water seeped into basement through the drywall.
I reported the incident and the management fixed the problem.
However, once again a year later, the same seepage happened and then re-occurred in September.
The management agreed to fix the matter but nothing has happened. I wrote to the property manager but there is no fix in sight and a significant portion of the space that I rent and pay for is unusable.
Can I reduce my rent by the amount of space I am not able to use until there is a fix?
Funnily enough, although this may seem a question that a real estate lawyer should be able to answer, there is a specialization in law that deals directly with landlord and tenant law.
In Ontario, there is the Landlord and Tenant Board (ltb.gov.on.ca) which deals with all of these matters.
Although your natural tendency is to simply reduce your rent by the estimated amount of rental space you can’t use, I would consult this user-friendly agency to get the answers on how to address this issue.
I would hate for you to be found in default of your rent because you hadn’t paid the full rent and were now subject to eviction proceedings.
Tread carefully.
Jeffrey Cowan is the principal of Cowan Law and can be reached at jeff@cowanlaw.ca.
