Living as a tenant has a lot of benefits,
especially when you find a greatflat and a wonderful landlord. However, that can’t happen
always, and sometimes you find a landlord who’s not entirely pleasant, or even
worse, he’s actually mistreating you.
In such situations, you should always start
thinking that he is most likely doing things that can be considered as
discrimination against you as their tenant. But how do you recognize these
situations, and what can you do if the landlord is discriminating against you?
What
Is Discrimination?
Discrimination is, naturally, against the
law. However, not everything is considered to be discrimination in the eyes of
the law. According to the Ontario Human Rights Code, there are a couple of
instances that are considered to be discrimination against the tenant. The
specific situations are numerous, but it’s legally defined as discrimination if
you’re being mistreated due to your:
●
Religion
●
Race,
color, or ethnicity
●
Birthplace
or citizenship
●
Age
●
Marital
status
●
Disability
of any kind
●
Sex, gender
identity or expression, or sexual orientation
●
Pregnancy
Additionally, it’s worth noting that the
same things apply when they come from other tenants and not the landlord. If
that’s the case, know that your landlord is bound by the law to try to do
something about it.
Now, the next thing that you should know is
that there is direct and indirect discrimination. Direct discrimination is
relatively obvious – for example, a landlord refuses to rent you their place
because they don’t like your religion. Indirect discrimination, on the other
hand, is not so blatant.
We can’t cover all instances of this as
they are endless, but we can help you understand it. For example, if your
landlord threatens to evict you because other tenants are complaining about
noises and the only noise you’re making comes from your children – that’s
indirect discrimination against children. Even if the landlord doesn’t
intentionally try to discriminate against you, it can still be considered discrimination.
You should also know that some things are
not considered to be discriminatory. For example, a landlord can decide to rent
all units in a building to people of the same sex. Additionally, if a part of
the rental is shared with the landlord or their family, then the landlord has
the right to refuse anyone for any reason.
What
to Do if You Think There’s Discrimination?
If a situation feels like it can quickly be
resolved with the landlord, try to do precisely that. Sometimes it can be a
simple misunderstanding.
The first thing that you should do is find
out if the situation you’ve been involved in is discriminatory. You can do that
here. If you decide that there has
been discrimination against your or your family, you may need to obtain legal
help.
If you can’t hire someone for legal
representation, then you need to try to prove the discrimination took place.
Talk to other tenants, ask for information from others, collect all the
evidence you can, take notes, etc. Essentially, do as many things as you can to
be able to prove that the discrimination took place later on.
We hope the information we’ve shared with
you will help you protect yourself in any potentially discriminating situation.
If you have any questions, please visit oursite and send us a message.
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