In a court decision from last year, a trailer park that served as a filming location for The Trailer Park Boys was denied approximately a year’s worth of rent for one of its lots. Woodbine Park Land Lease Community lost out on that money when the court ruled the Bank of Montreal (BMO) did not inadvertently become Woodbine’s tenant.

This is a scene from the first season of The Trailer Park Boys, which was filmed at Woodbine Park Land Lease Community.

BMO had previously been ordered to pay Woodbine more than $3,000 by the Director of Residential Tenancies. BMO appealed that ruling in the Small Claims Court, and adjudicator Eric K. Slone overturned it. He found that BMO was not a residential tenant, so the verdict from the Residential Tenancies Board did not apply.

“The decision I wrote, it’s a 14 page decision,” said Slone, whose average decision is only five to eight pages. “I am a frequent writer of decisions, but that was a little more involved and I put in a little more time because I did find it to be an interesting legal question.”

That “interesting legal question” is whether a bank can even become a residential tenant. Tenancies for corporations such as BMO are typically commercial, not residential.

Jamie Baxter, a professor at Dalhousie’s Schulich School of Law who specializes in land use and property law, also finds the issue fascinating.

“The adjudicator in this case is trying to struggle with… figuring out what the legislators were trying to tell us,” said Baxter.

The Facts

On Dec. 12, 2011, a man named Gordon MacDonald rented a lot from Woodbine to keep his mobile home there. He took out a loan from BMO around the same time – and used his mobile home as collateral.

In early 2015 MacDonald both abandoned his mobile home at Woodbine and defaulted on his loan to BMO, meaning the bank took possession of the home. After 45 days Woodbine would have been permitted to seize the trailer, so on Mar. 1, 2015, BMO paid off MacDonald’s back rent to Woodbine to keep control of the home. BMO continued paying rent for three more months, at which point it decided to stop paying, presumably because the cost wasn’t worth it.

Even though BMO stopped paying, Woodbine believed that the bank had become responsible for MacDonald’s rent payments. That’s when BMO was ordered to pay the money by the Director of Residential Tenancies, and where Slone’s ruling comes in.

The Ruling

Through a close reading of the language in the Residential Tenancies Act, Slone found that banks could not be residential tenants except in very rare circumstances. Therefore, the act did not apply in this situation, and the ruling from the board was void.

Slone’s judgement did not rule out the possibility of BMO paying Woodbine some or all of the money, only that BMO could not be compelled to pay under the Residential Tenancies Act; Woodbine would need to take its dispute with BMO somewhere else if it wished to continue pursuing the money.

Baxter said that Slone’s ruling was sufficient, but there were other ways Slone could have gone about the verdict.

“Look at the broader purposes of the act,” said Baxter. “What the court doesn’t say but could say here is ‘You shouldn’t be clogging up the works of what is meant to be a regime of access and justice for generally disempowered individuals,’” said Baxter.

Although Slone didn’t use that kind of language in his decision, he does seem to agree with Baxter.

“I didn’t think [the Residential Tenancies Board] was really the place for where corporate entities should be resolving their disputes. I think it really does serve as a place for individuals, and not corporations, to be litigating their issues,” said Slone.