The Not guilty plea
Liao Qun, a 44-year old landlord, appeared in court again on May 10 at the provincial court on Spring garden road. She was accused by the Crown of an assault that allegedly occurred in the previous month.
The charge also comes with a restraining order which prevents Liao from any contact to the student tenant Zheni Ge, who was allegedly assaulted by her landlord on April, 10 2017.
Liao pleaded not guilty after refusing to hear the details of the charge. A trial date is set on October, 24 with an estimated time of three to four days.
Previous cases
This is not the first time Liao has been in the court. In January 2016, she was sued by her contractor, Bing Han who did the renovation work for one of her properties on Payzant Avenue claims when filing the file that Liao did not pay the $7,000 after the work. Shortly after, on February, 26 Liao filed a $25,000 counter claim, insisting that the work was not in compliance with the city by-law and need to be redone.
In a motion to dismiss this counterclaim, Han’s lawyer, Kelly Shannon called this a “blatant abuse of the court process.”
The judge dismissed this counter claim in December 2016.
“This matter came before me on June 9, 2016……I found that because the matter was settled in its entirety at that time, there was no opportunity to re-litigate once settle,” J.W. Stephen Johnston ruled.
The case was settled outside of the court. Han’s wife Xue Fang Han said in a phone interview that she can’t really talk about how much they were paid in the settlement.
“I’m not particularly happy or unhappy about the result. I’m just glad she paid and this is over,” Mrs. Han said.
Han and his wife are originally from Vancouver, BC. They moved to Halifax three years ago.
City’s inspection
Liao immigrated to Canada in 2013. She purchased her first property in 2014 on Greenwood Avenue, Halifax. The property is next to Saint Mary’s University which she converted to a student residence, to mainly international students. Liao continued to buy another two properties and converted them to rental properties in 2015 and 2016. One of her properties that is on 891 Greenwood Avenue is under investigation into land use.
The city says the inspection is “open and active” and refuses to comment further on the details.
Liao was reached by the reporter and defended herself, but declined a formal interview because “journalists take words out of context.”