City tweaks landlord licensing, asks province to deal with landlord and tenant disputes in Brampton

After putting a pause on its new landlord licensing program, Brampton is now calling on the province to deal with a backlog of complaints as the pilot project prepares to come back online.

On Wednesday, dozens of Brampton residents came to a committee of Brampton city council meeting to give feedback on the city’s now-frozen Residential Rental Licensing Pilot project (RRL).

With some landlords raising concerns ranging from additional costs, rules enforcement and inspection regulations among others, the two-year pilot was put on a temporary hold last week.

Now, the city says it aims to bring the controversial program back with some tweaks by the end of March with more public consultation from Brampton’s RRL taskforce.

“There’s always learnings from any sort of policy,” said Coun. Harkirat Singh on Wednesday. “This is a new policy in the City of Brampton and we’re here to help, and we look forward to more feedback.”

But council is also calling for changes to the provincial Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB), asking for a priority on dealing with a backlog of complaints related to registered Bampton landlords and their tenants.

While the city is responsible for inspections, disputes between tenants and landlords go through the province, and data shows there were more than 53,000 active cases at the LTB at the end of 2023 – a sizable increase from approximately 32,800 open cases to round out the previous year.

A motion from Coun. Dennis Keenan passed unanimously at committee will see Mayor Brown write a letter to the province calling for the LTB to “prioritize cases of licensed landlords in Brampton and find a fair balance of landlord and tenant rights.”

The program was introduced as a way to hopefully cut down on an estimated 16,000 unregistered rentals in Brampton, as well as go after problem landlords and tenants, with staff saying new measures would add an additional offence of operating without a licence.

The city says it aims to relaunch the updated program in six to eight weeks.