Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Misdescription of the landlord in the LTB application was treated as a correctable clerical misnomer, not a basis to invalidate the eviction order.
• Scope of Divisional Court jurisdiction was central, with the court finding the tenant’s grounds did not raise pure questions of law but rather facts or mixed fact and law.
• The tenant’s challenge to the refusal of an adjournment engaged procedural fairness principles but was held to fall within the LTB’s broad discretion.
• Evidence that the purchaser intended to occupy the unit personally supported the LTB’s eviction order, and later termination of the APS could not be used by the tenant to undo that result.
• The tenant’s conduct in refusing to vacate, seeking a late adjournment and using the automatic stay on appeal was found to be an abuse of process aimed at “gaming the system.”
• The landlord’s motion to quash the appeal was granted, the stay of the LTB order was lifted, and the Sheriff was directed to enforce the eviction, with costs left to written submissions and not fixed in a specific amount.

Background and parties

The case arises from a dispute over a residential condominium unit in Oakville, Ontario, rented by the tenant, Edyta Bourgoin, under a written residential lease agreement with Waltmar Capital Inc. Waltmar, an Ontario corporation, is the registered owner of the premises, and Walter Schneider is its principal. The lease began as a fixed one-year term from August 1, 2021 to July 31, 2022, was renewed for another year to July 31, 2023, and then continued on a month-to-month basis.
In October 2024, Waltmar entered into an agreement of purchase and sale (APS) with an 85-year-old purchaser, Agnes Mewes, who intended to personally occupy the unit after closing. The closing date was set for March 1, 2025. The purchaser later provided a statutory declaration confirming that she intended to move into the premises herself following completion of the transaction.

Steps taken to terminate the tenancy and the landlord’s application

Following the APS, Waltmar delivered two N12 Notices of Termination to the tenant, on October 22 and November 8, 2024, advising her that the tenancy would terminate effective January 31, 2025, based on the purchaser’s planned personal occupation of the unit. The tenant refused to vacate.
On November 22, 2024, an Application to End a Tenancy and Evict a Tenant (Form L2) was filed with the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB). Due to inadvertence, the landlord was named in that application as Walter Schneider personally, instead of Waltmar Capital Inc. Although counsel for the landlord wrote to the LTB in February 2025 to explain this clerical error, the LTB did not formally correct the party name in its eventual order. Nonetheless, it was undisputed at all times that Waltmar was the true landlord and the vendor under the APS.

The Landlord and Tenant Board hearing and order

The LTB hearing on the landlord’s eviction application took place on April 10, 2025. At the outset, the tenant, through new counsel, sought an adjournment on the basis that her lawyer was unavailable due to an urgent medical procedure. However, there was also a prior letter from March 31, 2025 in which tenant’s counsel had advised the LTB that he was scheduled for a provincial court trial on April 10 and 11, 2025, meaning he was in any event double-booked for the LTB date.
The landlord opposed the adjournment, arguing that the case was straightforward: the tenant did not dispute the purchaser’s good-faith intention to buy the unit and reside there. The LTB also heard that the purchaser was effectively homeless, living in a retirement residence and paying significant costs for temporary accommodation and storage, while experiencing financial hardship and being unwilling to postpone the closing indefinitely. After considering prejudice to both sides, the LTB refused the adjournment and proceeded to hear the application.
On May 21, 2025, the LTB issued an order terminating the tenancy, requiring the tenant to vacate the premises by June 30, 2025, and authorizing eviction enforcement by the Sheriff if she did not leave voluntarily. The reasons also addressed the refusal of the adjournment and the overall balancing of fairness and efficiency in the LTB’s high-volume environment.

The appeal to the Divisional Court and the tenant’s grounds

On June 20, 2025, the tenant appealed the LTB’s order to the Divisional Court. Because of the automatic stay of eviction triggered by an appeal, the tenant’s continued occupation prevented closing of the APS, and the sale transaction was ultimately frustrated and terminated, with mutual releases exchanged between purchaser and vendor.
The tenant’s notice of appeal set out three initial grounds. First, she alleged that the LTB erred in law by allowing an application brought by a “non-party” to the lease, arguing that Schneider, not Waltmar, was named. Second, she alleged a breach of procedural fairness because the LTB refused to adjourn the hearing despite her counsel’s unavailability and the absence of prejudice if an adjournment were granted. Third, she alleged a further breach of procedural fairness on the basis that the LTB held that she did not have an “absolute right” to legal representation.
On August 27, 2025, the tenant served an amended notice of appeal adding a fourth ground. She argued that the APS had expired by its terms, that counsel for Schneider had admitted before another judge that no agreement remained in force and that the purchaser no longer intended to occupy the unit, and that in these circumstances the landlord had no proper basis for repossession under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (RTA) and the appeal should therefore succeed or be remitted for dismissal at the LTB.

Legal framework governing motions to quash and LTB appeals

The motion before the Divisional Court was brought by the landlord to quash the tenant’s appeal as “manifestly devoid of merit” under section 134(4) of the Courts of Justice Act. The court noted that its power to quash an appeal is exercised sparingly and usually only where it is clear, even without a full hearing, that the appeal cannot succeed.
The court also emphasized the statutory limits on appeals from the LTB. Under section 210(1) of the RTA, an appeal lies to the Divisional Court only on a question of law. Pure questions of fact—what actually occurred—or mixed questions of fact and law—whether proven facts satisfy a legal test—are outside the court’s appellate jurisdiction. The Divisional Court therefore cannot revisit factual findings or re-weigh the evidence; its role is confined to identifying and correcting legal errors.

Misnomer and the first ground of appeal

On the first ground, the court rejected the tenant’s characterization of the landlord as a “non-party.” The record made it clear that Waltmar was always the landlord under the lease and always the vendor under the APS, and both sides knew this. The problem was a clerical error in the LTB application that misnamed Walter Schneider instead of the corporation.
Drawing on established misnomer jurisprudence, the court held that such a misdescription can and should be corrected where the intended party has always been identifiable and knew it was meant to be named. The doctrine of misnomer supports amending the pleadings to substitute the proper landlord name. Because there was no real dispute about who the landlord was, the court held that this clerical error did not create a genuine question of law for appeal, and the first ground was therefore devoid of merit.

Adjournment, procedural fairness and the second and third grounds

The second and third grounds focused on the refusal of an adjournment and the LTB’s comments about the absence of an “absolute right” to legal representation. The tenant framed these as errors of law and breaches of procedural fairness.
The court characterized adjournment decisions as a matter of discretion involving questions of mixed fact and law, not pure questions of law. Tribunal decisions on adjournments are generally entitled to significant deference, and courts will intervene only if there is an error in principle, a failure to consider relevant factors, or conduct that is arbitrary or unfair. The statutory direction that the LTB proceed in the most expeditious manner consistent with giving parties an adequate opportunity to be heard reinforces the Board’s mandate to manage its own process efficiently.
In reviewing the record, the court noted that tenant’s counsel had long known of the LTB hearing date and had also indicated a conflicting criminal trial for the same dates before the Ontario Court of Justice. The adjournment request was made relatively late, only shortly before the LTB hearing. At the same time, the landlord and purchaser faced substantial prejudice from further delay, given the purchaser’s age, her homelessness and financial hardship, and the time-sensitive nature of the APS transaction.
The LTB took submissions, considered prejudice to each party, recessed to deliberate, and then delivered reasons explaining why an adjournment was not justified. On those facts, the court found no denial of procedural fairness. There is no absolute right to legal representation before the LTB; what is required is a fair process, not a guarantee that a party’s preferred counsel will be available on the scheduled date. The court concluded that the refusal to adjourn did not amount to an error of law and that these grounds did not raise an appealable legal issue.

The APS, fresh evidence and the fourth ground of appeal

The fourth ground of appeal relied on events that occurred after the LTB decision—primarily the termination of the APS because the purchaser was unwilling to wait indefinitely while the tenant remained in possession and the appeal stayed the eviction. The tenant argued that because the APS had expired and the purchaser no longer intended to move in, the landlord lacked valid grounds under the RTA to repossess the unit, and the appeal should therefore succeed.
The Divisional Court held that this ground did not raise a pure question of law. Instead, it invited the court to revisit the evidence and factual findings made by the LTB about the APS and the purchaser’s good-faith intention to occupy the premises. Those findings had not been contested at the tribunal level and formed the basis for the eviction order. Re-assessing that factual matrix falls outside the Divisional Court’s limited appellate jurisdiction on questions of law. The LTB’s reasoning was characterized as a discretionary application of law to facts—mixed fact and law—for which no appeal lies.
Further, the court emphasized that the later breakdown of the APS was in large part a consequence of the tenant’s own refusal to vacate and her use of the appeal to obtain an automatic stay of eviction. During the LTB hearing, the purchaser had made clear that she would only wait so long, given her financial circumstances, and would terminate the APS if the tenant did not leave. By continuing to occupy the unit, seeking a late adjournment, not complying with the LTB order to vacate, and then appealing to secure a stay, the tenant contributed directly to the failure of the transaction.

Abuse of process and the court’s assessment of the tenant’s conduct

In addressing the overall context, the Divisional Court found that the tenant’s pattern of conduct amounted to “gaming the system.” The court pointed to several elements: refusal to vacate despite clear notice and an order to leave; a delayed request for adjournment despite prior knowledge of counsel’s conflicting commitments; use of the appeal mechanism primarily to obtain an automatic stay of eviction; and reliance on the consequent collapse of the APS—caused by that very delay—as a fresh basis to challenge the eviction.
On that record, the court concluded that the appeal was not only bereft of a genuine question of law but also constituted an abuse of process. Allowing the appeal to proceed would reward the tenant’s strategic use of delay and undermine the LTB’s ability to manage time-sensitive residential tenancy disputes involving vulnerable purchasers. This abuse-of-process finding provided an additional basis for granting the landlord’s motion to quash.

Final disposition, successful party and monetary outcome

The Divisional Court granted the landlord’s motion to quash the appeal. It held that none of the four grounds raised a proper question of law within the court’s jurisdiction and that, in any event, the appeal was manifestly devoid of merit and abusive. As a result, the automatic stay of the LTB’s May 21, 2025 eviction order was vacated, and the Sheriff was directed to enforce that order, clearing the way for the landlord to recover possession of the unit.
The successful party in the proceeding before the Divisional Court was the landlord, Walter Schneider (acting in relation to Waltmar Capital Inc. as owner/landlord). The endorsement does not, however, set a fixed amount for costs, damages or any other monetary relief. Instead, the judge provided a timetable for brief written costs submissions if the parties could not agree, leaving any quantum to be determined later. Accordingly, while the landlord was successful on the motion and obtained enforcement of the eviction order, the total monetary amount of any costs or other award in the landlord’s favour cannot be determined from this decision alone.