Ontario Tenant Rights Group Rules
INTRODUCTION
Welcome to the Ontario Tenant Rights Facebook Group.
You must answer the Member Join Request questions in order to be admitted to the group. This includes finding the secret word found on this page. Admittance is also at the discretion of the Moderators and Admins (jointly referenced as “Staff” below) and they reserve the right to remove or decline any members at any time.
NOT LEGAL ADVICE
Any suggestions and supportive comments provided by members, Moderators or Admins of this group are NOT to be considered legal advice.
We are not qualified to provide legal advice: we are not lawyers, and with few exceptions, we are not paralegals. The group simply consists of tenants, landlords and realtors who know the rules and are willing to spend their free time sharing our knowledge to help tenants and landlords. Members within the group are here to tell you what THEY would do if they found themselves in your situation based upon their understanding of the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act, related government publications, and Landlord and Tenant Board rulings.
By participating in group discussion you acknowledge and consent to that assertion. If you require legal advice, seek out a qualified legal professional.
ALL ARE WELCOME
While this is a tenant-focused group, participation (asking questions or providing support) from landlords, property managers, and realtors is welcome and appreciated. The business of owning and renting property is entirely built on relationships, trust, and communication, and so one of our goals is to foster dialogue and ensure that both sides of the equation understand their responsibilities and rights. However, we will remain a tenant-focused group and will advocate for tenants.
If you are a legal professional, you MUST contact an Admin in order to be allowed into the group.
This group is based in Ontario, Canada. We are unable to offer any support on questions that deal with housing/tenancy issues outside of this province.
GENERAL GROUP RULES
BE SURE TO READ ALL GROUP ANNOUNCEMENTS
1. Comments must be Helpful, Non-Repetitive and Accurate
We have a responsibility to ensure that our suggestions are as accurate as a layperson’s suggestion can be. Make sure to support your comments with appropriate sources, such as case law or RTA sections.
Before you comment on a post, read ALL comments first and ask yourself, is my comment:
- helpful?
- unique and not a duplication of another comment?
- based on legislative fact or precedent that I can support with evidence?
DO NOT COMMENT, unless the answer to all three questions is “Yes!”. Failure to do so can result in mutes or even removal from the group.
DO NOT ENGAGE if you feel that someone is making inaccurate or inappropriate comments – report it to the Staff instead.
2. Ontario Tenant Rights is a *Discrimination-Free* Space
This group deals with tenancy issues, which can and often do intersect with the OHRC guidelines. Discrimination based on any of the protected classes, depending on the severity, will result in an automatic mute and may result in removal from the group.
This also means that we will not accept comments that attack or question members’ intent based on the information you may have found in their personal profile.
3. Don’t Be Disrespectful or Engage in Conflict with Staff
Disrespectful behaviour, bullying, trolling, making judgemental comments, argumentativeness, or continual attacks on any other member including Staff is not permitted and will result in appropriate action. Do not double down on your behaviour when called on it.
BLOCKING OF STAFF IS STRICTLY PROHIBITED AND WILL RESULT IN AUTOMATIC REMOVAL.
4. Do Not Send Unsolicited Private Messages
The unsolicited private messaging of any member (except for Staff) is not permitted. This includes the continuation of an argument or disagreement from a post within the group. If you take issue with how a discussion happened in OTR, please feel free to reach out to any of the Staff so that we can assess the situation. Unsolicited messaging of members will result in automatic removal from the group.
5. No Sweeping Generalizations and Politics
There are horrid tenants, and there are horrid landlords. Anyone making comments along the lines of “all landlords are terrible” or “of course you did that, you’re a tenant and you’re all terrible” will be immediately muted and removed from the group, if the behaviour persists.
Tenancy rights are non-partisan. While we are able to discuss politics, it must be limited to how that directly impacts tenancy rights and the struggle for affordable housing. Unsolicited political discussion, personal attacks revolving around such, et al, are not permitted and will result in a mute or an immediate removal depending on severity. AUGUST
6. No Sharing of Sensitive or Personal Information
You must not share sensitive or personal information (names, email addresses, phone numbers etc.) in comments or posts. If you intend to share images or documents in posts or comments, you MUST ensure that any personal or otherwise sensitive information contained therein is redacted (blacked out). Similarly, sharing posts, documents, or sensitive information from OTR outside of the group will result in removal from the group.
7. No Ranting
We do NOT permit complaining rants. You are allowed to be frustrated. This is likely your home or asset being impacted, after all. But rants that ask for no support, ask no questions and seek only an outlet to vent frustration WILL be deleted. This is a support forum, not a rants forum.
8. No Advertising or Solicitation
We do not allow any form of advertising or business solicitation in this group. Please keep all posts relevant to tenancy matters. There are listing groups on Facebook if you wish to advertise your properties or services.
9. Links Shared to the Group Must Be Relevant
Any links shared to this group must be relevant to the group, in that they refer to tenancy issues, housing issues, or if related to political parties, are explicitly about tenancy or housing. Approval of posts including links is at the discretion of the Staff and approval is not guaranteed. Furthermore, if you do not write a comment stating a position, asking for advice, or prompting respectful debate related to the link, the post will be deleted.
10. For Press Inquiries Please Contact Staff
Any and all members of the Press requesting input from the group must check in with the Staff to explain the general input they need and to prove credentials if requested.
FINAL NOTES
Thank you for reading through our rules. We hope that these clearly explain what is and is not acceptable behaviour, however, if you are in doubt about a rule, please PM one of the staff and we would be happy to clarify.
Our goal is to have everyone here help everyone else – it’s one of the things that makes this group work and grow. Feel free to join in with questions, comments, and also feel equally free to lurk!
On the left-hand side of the group you’ll see a section called FILES – you will find most LTB forms there as well as a sample Roommate Agreement, lists, and other potentially helpful resources addressing common tenancy situations.
If you have a question that you don’t want to post to the group because it’s a delicate situation, or your roommate or landlord or tenant is also in the group, you can PM any of the Staff directly and request that we post anonymously on your behalf.
Staff are listed as follows:
Gilles Frenette
Krystine May
Jodi Sonada
Cass Sclauzero
Nadine Lessio
Eunice Hum
Kyle Alexander Rodgers
Cathy Doyle
Helen Greene
Elle Gallagher
Lisa Poirier
Heidi Kurien
Brad Bee
You can reach any of them by tagging them in a post or by clicking on MEMBERS on the left-hand side of the group page and you will see all the Moderators and Admins.