Montreal's dumbest landlords

>> Tenants of a Montreal property company accuse their landlord of sending them threatening letters

by NOEMI LOPINTO

A 71-year-old tenant of Les Immeubles Yamiro Inc. and S. Yanex is the second person in recent weeks to come forward with a letter that threatens to reveal personal information to a number of government agencies if he takes the company to the Régie du Logement. The tenant, who refused to allow his name to be published, says he recently received the unsigned, undated letter on Yamiro stationery. It was in an envelope which also contained a demand for "unpaid" rent.

The man says he had been given a notice by Yamiro last summer asking for a rent increase, and consulted a lawyer who told him that the increase was illegal. He then offered a compromise rent increase that was accepted by the company, he says, with whom he had had cordial relations for most of the 10 years he lived in the building. This changed last fall when he became involved with a group of tenants in his building who were becoming disgruntled over a number of complaints--generally involving noisy neighbours and overdue repairs.

Robert Lefebvre, administrator of Yamiro Inc. and S. Yanex, claimed to be "stupefied" when he first found out about the threatening letters, which were brought to light by the community group Project Genesis. "All our letters must be approved beforehand and this letter was never signed by any members of the administration. The letters were sent without our knowledge and the person who wrote it is no longer in our employ," Lefebvre says.

He also denied that Yamiro president Robert Sebag was responsible for sending the unusual document. "Mr. Sebag is president of the company," he says, "but he doesn't take care of the apartments. He has nothing to do with any of this. It doesn't mean that because you are the president of the company that you run it."

The tenant who spoke with the Mirror says he dealt directly with Sebag on several occasions, however.

Who's liable?

Arnold Bennett, a former Montreal city councillor who runs a popular housing hotline, says, "I would say Sebag is still liable. The employer ultimately carries the can for the actions of his subordinates, particularly if it's done on company letterhead. There is a provision in the law that says that you cannot discriminate against somebody for exercising their legal rights. Secondly, there's a general provision against harassment. Tenants could sue him for exemplary damages using those two articles of the Quebec Charter of Rights."

The Régie du Logement declined to comment on the letter, saying only that any pronouncement about its legality would have to be made in a court--whether at the Régie or elsewhere.

When the Mirror checked out Yamiro's cases at the Régie, the records showed that the company is involved in numerous disputes. The most common type of case involved tenants asking for rent reductions due to overdue repairs, but complaints ranged from gaping holes in the walls and power failures to mushrooms and rats. The company--which owns 25 Montreal apartment buildings--has had an average of about 10 cases a month before the Régie for the last two years. Lefebvre calls this "run of the mill" for a large property company.

But Bennett said he and other tenants' rights activists are beginning to pay attention to Yamiro Inc. "Sebag's property names have edged their way onto our list of 'automatic alarm-bell companies.' When a regular stream of people have some kind of disgusting problem, and the same landlord's name is on the claim, it becomes familiar to everybody," he says.

But Bennett warns that if Sebag's tenants sue him for harassment and discrimination at the Régie du Logement, he only faces a maximum fine of $500 to $2,000. "Ultimately, the worst thing that will happen to him is that he will be embarrassed. In civil suits in Quebec, something a landlord does has to be pretty outrageous for major damages to be awarded. It's considered a big deal when the rental board nails somebody for $1,000 to $2,000."

"What's surprising," says Bennett, "is not that his tenants have problems with Sebag or the company, or even that these threats were made. It's that they were put in writing. That's like one of those 'dumb criminals' programs on television." :

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