In 2015 I was investigated by the Law Society. This is the letter I wrote them, with names obviously, before I was cleared of any issues and wrong doing, based on very detailed and specific explanations of exactly how I conduct my business which I go into below.
In the next couple days, another blog post will follow explaining why I am publishing this now, and it has to do with the Landlord & Tenant Board. Needless to say, I am not amused.
October 18th 2016
Dear Mr. Investigator:
Re: Subject: Rachelle Berube
Complainant: Law
Society of Upper Canada
Case No. : Blah Blah Blah
Thank you for your letter dated late 2015. We are aware of the regulation of Legal Services Law Society Act. Landlord Rescue Inc. and Rachelle Berube comply with the Act and the regulation of law.
Anonymous Paralegal Services
Professional Corporation LSUC #: BlahBlah has been preparing our Applications
and appearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board on our behalf for more than 5
years. We are very happy with his services.
(I’ve attached a sampling of different Orders obtained by Anonymous
Paralegal– Schedule A)
We do not generally
attend Landlord and Tenant Board hearings unless our testimony as property
managers is required.
Landlord Rescue Inc is a
consumer of legal services as part of our care for the property. We care for
and maintain the property by hiring qualified individuals to fix sinks,
landscape and evict tenants.
Our company use of a paralegal predates the latest ruling on the matter in LSUC v Chiarelli in 2013 and the Appeal in 2014 by several years as evidenced by the orders referenced above which date back to 2011. (Schedule A).
Mr. Idiotic Paralegal makes a variety of allegations
which I have attempted to itemize, numerate and clarify;
1 – Mr. Idiotic Paralegal
advises that the tenants told him that they had been dealing with me (Rachelle
Berube) throughout.
This is true, because Rachelle
Berube is their property manager. There
is nothing nefarious or untoward about this involvement. The tenants have never
attended any of their hearings at the Landlord and Tenant Board. If Deadbeat
Tenants had chosen to attend they would have met Anonymous Paralegal. All the Landlord and Tenant Board Orders for Deadbeat
Tenants, 1234 Yonge Street, Thornhill, ON indicate that the tenants failed to
attend any hearings and Anonymous Paralegal or another licensee was in
attendance. (Attached Schedule B)
Anonymous Paralegal’s involvement in TNL-123245-15
SA began once the N-4 notice period had elapsed, after which we had sent him a
copy of the N-4 and Certificate of Service to prepare the application. He subsequently filed the application at the
Landlord and Tenant Board and a hearing was scheduled for October 5th,
2015.
More than a month after the hearing, the
Sheriff enforced the Order, and Ms. Berube informed Deadbeat Tenants that they
had to follow the proper process and obtain a Motion to Void an Eviction Order for file number TNL-12345-15 in
order to regain possession of the premises of # 1234 Yonge Street, Thornhill
ON. On November 13th, 2015, Deadbeat
Tenants filed an affidavit (Schedule D) that they had paid all of the rents
owing after which the property manager, Rachelle Berube immediately provided
them possession of the unit.
Deadbeat Tenant’s
tenancy started on March 1st, 2015.
They defaulted on the rent the following month in April 2015 and Landlord
Rescue Inc. subsequently commenced the termination process and retained the
paralegal services of Anonymous Paralegal to administer the legal aspects,
generate the Application and, to attend the Landlord and Tenant Board hearing.
The tenants voided this
order TEL -12345-15 (dated June 23rd, 2015) by paying off all of the
rent arrears to the property manager, Ms. Berube – just one day before the
sheriff was scheduled to attend the unit and enforce the order.
This order was followed
by TNL-12345-15 dated October 5th, 2015 which was also attended by Anonymous
Paralegal (Schedule B), TSL-12345-16 dated May 18th, 2016 was attended
by Anonymous Paralegal (Schedule B), and finally TSL-12345-16 dated September
22nd 2016 which was also attended by Anonymous paralegal (Schedule B) and
resulted in the final termination of their tenancy effective October 3rd
2016 and an Order for payment of rent.
Mr. Idiot Paralegal’s involvement began on November
19th 2016 after Anonymous Paralegals’ work for us was already
complete (See attached Schedule C)
2 – Mr. Idiot Paralegal alleges that he contacted
Mr. Anonymous Paralegal with precise questions relevant to the ongoing
proceedings and that Mr. Anonymous Paralegal re-directed him to speak with the
property manager, Ms. Berube.
Mr. Idiot Paralegal was
hired November 19th 2015 to represent the tenants for a Motion to Void the Eviction Order. (Schedule C)
Mr. Anonymous Paralegal’s
involvement ended October 5th 2016 after the hearing. It was as a professional courtesy that he
tried to answer Mr. Idiot Paralegal’s questions and directed him to the person
who had the information he was asking for – the property manager, Ms. Rachelle
Berube.
Mr. Idiot Paralegal
asked Mr. Anonymous Paralegal to provide him with the copy of the Sheriff’s
receipt and answers about payments that had been made by the tenant to Landlord
Rescue Inc. (See emails attached as
Schedule E). These questions are property management and
accounting questions. A third party legal representative would not know the
answers to rent collection and sheriff receipt queries. In Mr. Idiot Paralegal’s initial email he
doesn’t even state the date of the hearing, the name of the tenants or anything
except the file number.
However, as is common
procedure with property management companies, Landlord Rescue Inc. only
retained Mr. Anonymous Paralegal for purposes of administering the application
preparation and attending the hearing which was held on October 5th
2015. Mr. Idiot Paralegal, being a paralegal himself, knew or should have known
that Mr. Anonymous Paralegal would not have this information on-hand and would
need to refer to the property manager.
On November 19th,
2015, over one month after the hearing, Mr. Idiot Paralegal contacted Mr. Anonymous
Paralegal via email (Schedule E) regarding a discrepancy in the total amount
owed by the tenants. Mr. Anonymous
Paralegal directed him to Ms. Berube for clarification of the amount. Mr. Idiot
Paralegal contacted Ms. Berube by telephone (November 19th, 2015)
and conducted himself in an unwarrantedly discourteous and hostile manner
throughout the conversation. Mr. Idiot
Paralegal’s accusation was that Landlord Rescue Inc. had deliberately
overcharged Deadbeat Tenants. Mr. Idiot Paralegal was advised that the
discrepancy was due to the sheriff fee which was not included in Mr. Idiot
Paralegal’s calculations. Mr. Idiot
Paralegal knew or should have known about the Sheriff’s fee because his clients
received a letter from enforcement. In fact, Deadbeat Tenants vacated the premises about an hour before the
enforcement. They turned over their apartment keys to Rachelle Berube who was
awaiting the arrival of the Sheriff for enforcement. Mr. Idiot Paralegal failed
to obtain all this vital information from his clients.
Mr. Idiot Paralegal
thereafter demanded a copy of the sheriffs’ receipt immediately. He was advised that Ms. Berube was out of the
office until Thursday November 26th 2015 and the copy of the receipt
would be provided to him at that time or at the hearing.
Ms. Berube advised Mr. Idiot
Paralegal that she would be out of office until Thursday (see emails in Schedule
E) yet Mr. Idiot Paralegal sent an email to Mr. Anonymous Paralegal complaining
that he had been told he would receive the receipt by Tuesday. Mr. Idiot
Paralegal also assumes that Ms. Berube is Mr. Anonymous Paralegal’s employee. (Schedule E.2)
Mr. Idiot Paralegal’s
demeanor was so unprofessional that Ms. Berube refused to speak to him further
without some sort of proof that he had been retained by the tenants.
The Sheriff had already
enforced the eviction. The tenants had filed their Affidavit and Motion To Void on November 13th 2015. (Schedule
D) Ms. Berube had already given the deadbeat tenants possession of the unit on November
13th 2015. Mr. Idiot Paralegal was retained by the tenants on
November 19th 2016, 6 days after Enforcement.
Mr. Anonymous Paralegal
was attending the Newmarket Landlord and Tenant Board on November 30th
2015 and was retained for that hearing by Landlord Rescue Inc. Mr. Anonymous
Paralegal is on the record as consenting to the Motion to Void the Eviction Order.
Tenants are only allowed
one Motion to Void during the term of
their tenancy. Their tenancy could not be terminated for continual late payment
until the end of their lease. Considering the tenant’s actions and history
Landlord Rescue Inc. wanted the deadbeat tenants’ to get their one allowed Motion to Void so they could then follow
up this application to the Landlord and Tenant Board with a termination of the
tenancy for continual late payment if the tenants did not reform their
behaviour.
Mr. Anonymous Paralegal
did not have the information that Mr. Idiot Paralegal required because he is a
third party legal representative.
Collection of rent arrears, monitoring of payment plans, filing for
enforcement, and dealing with the tenants is properly the work of the property
manager.
3 – Mr. Idiot Paralegal
alleges that he reviewed the website www.landlordrescue.ca. and questioned Mr. Anonymous Paralegal about
it and Mr. Anonymous Paralegal said that Landlord Rescue was not his company.
Rachelle Berube is the
sole shareholder of the corporate entity known as Landlord Rescue Inc. (Schedule F)
Rachelle Berube was the
only owner of Landlord Rescue a, sole proprietorship started in 2007.
Rachelle Berube is
the only owner of the Trademark “Landlord Rescue”
On the “About” tab Mr. Idiot Paralegal would
find Rachelle Berube’s story, her diploma
in property management and the story about why she started Landlord Rescue. (Schedule G)
On the “Services” tab
there is an explanation about exactly what our services are and another
reference to Anonymous Paralegal Services. (Schedule H)
Mr. Anonymous Paralegal’s
position at Landlord Rescue Inc is made clearly. He is an outside entity that
does occasional work for us.
Mr. Idiot Paralegal has demonstrated that he is
capable of navigating the various tabs of the website as he took exception to
what he found under the “Paralegal” tab. (Schedule I) He therefore knew or
should have known about Ms. Berube, her qualifications and her involvement, and
ownership of the company.
4 – It is a matter of fact that the third part of our rotating banner reads,
“We evict people so you don’t have to”
There
are many parties to the complex process called “eviction.”
There is no legal
definition for the term eviction in the current Residential Tenancies Act, the
term being in common parlance to mean the removal of a tenant
from rental property by the landlord.
In some jurisdictions it may also involve the removal of persons from premises
that were foreclosed by a mortgagee.
The Landlord and Tenant Board refers to Notices of Termination, Applications for Termination and the
Sheriff is referred to as Enforcement. Orders “terminate the tenancy”. The Sheriff’s Office is “giving vacant
possession”. The process as a whole is
termed eviction.
Landlord Rescue’s role is to oversee this
eviction process, attend hearings as a witness or proxy if required, instruct
the lawyer or paralegal, speak to the tenant, attend the enforcement if
required, collect rent arrears, and generally be of service. After the Sheriff attends, we might take
photographs, hire a contractor, advertise the home and rent it to new tenants.
Strictly speaking, the paralegal’s
role is to look over the notices of termination and file the application forms
at the Landlord and Tenant Board and attend the hearing at the Landlord and
Tenant Board.
The actual ousting of
the tenants occurs months later, after the 10 day period for issuing the Order,
5 day period for mailing of the Order, 11 day waiting period before the Order
can be Enforced by the Sheriff and then only, if the Order is not voided by the
actions of the tenant. Afterwards, the Order is transported to the Sheriff’s
Office, a fee ranging from $320 to $380 is paid and the landlord or property manager
is given a day to call the enforcement office. Next the owner or property
manager checks to see if the tenant has vacated, and if the tenants are still
in the premises, the Sheriff is called. Several days later, the landlord is called
with a specific time and date for the Sheriff to actually attend the property.
The Sheriff’s role is to
attend the property on the day of Enforcement and oust the tenants, calling the
Police if they resist or refuse to leave. The tenants will then get 72 hours to
retrieve their possessions, after which any animals and belongings become the
property of the landlord.
Attending the property, inspecting
the property, delivering initial notices and directing the paralegal is the
work of the property manager. We occasionally end up testifying about the
status of the property.
Property managers make
sure payment plans are followed and not breached, drive orders to the sheriff
for enforcement, attend the sheriff for the actual eviction with the key or the
locksmith, coordinate with the paralegal or lawyer and work in conjunction with
the Licensee to regain possession of the property for the owner. We are then usually the parties charged with
supervising entry for tenants to retrieve their belongings.
As you can see by the above description, there
is a lot more to the process “Eviction” than simply preparing the applications
and attending the Landlord and Tenant Board hearing. This is why Landlord
Rescue Inc. still uses the term eviction in their three part banner even though
they do not provide the actual legal representation and hire a licensee to
manage that portion of the task.
5 – Mr. Idiot Paralegal states that under the
tab “Paralegal” Rachelle Berube wrote “For the best paralegal services in the
GTA call Anonymous Paralegal” and there are testimonials about Anonymous
Paralegal’ services. (Schedule I)
We do refer Anonymous Paralegal, a lot of
people with trouble tenants need a paralegal, others need a property manager,
and others need both. Landlord Rescue Inc. doesn’t provide representation at
the Landlord and Tenant Board hearing so we are very happy to provide Anonymous
Paralegal’s name as someone who does good work and can be trusted to navigate
the Landlord and Tenant Board with neophyte owners.
As a small business, if
we can direct people away from our phones who don’t need our services, we can
save ourselves a lot of time.
Rachelle Berube cares
about her readers, who are mostly small landlords, and we give away free
leases, applications, notices of entry and our experience and knowledge. We
also tell readers companies we use to provide us with services, so that they
too can enjoy decent competent service. We rarely get paid for doing so.
We refer readers to
Tenant Verification Services where they can perform credit checks on potential
tenants (We get paid $3 for each credit check). We refer them to Rent Compass
for free advertisement for their properties (Not paid). We also refer people to
Viewit.ca (Not Paid).
We are the customers of
Mr. Anonymous Paralegal and he certainly doesn’t control what we write. This
includes the “testimonials” which are not curated testimonials but his customers
commenting, over which we have no control. We do not ask for blog comments. We do not get paid for posting him on our
website. The general public can just go on our website and call Anonymous
Paralegal or email him. We don’t mind getting a $50 check every three months
from Tenant Verification but we don’t want to lose our credibility and
neutrality by accepting paid advertisements. The website exists solely to
provide help to small landlords and to increase awareness of our business.
Landlordrescue.ca is a
website and a highly irreverent one at that. We use figures of speech such as
exaggeration and hyperbole, to make our writing more entertaining and fun to
read. It is quite clear that the writings on the website are opinion and
commentary.
6 – Mr. Idiot Paralegal
says there are also posts in which Rachelle Berube gives legal advice regarding
Landlord and Tenant Matters.
Rachelle Berube has
written approximately 14 novels worth of content on www.landlordrescue.ca most of
which diarizes situations that the writer has found herself in throughout the
years. Rachelle Berube has also written
a fair amount of content on other websites.
You cannot extricate
residential property management from the Residential Tenancies Act. and write
about the property management subject without discussing legal issues and having
some legal information. The tone of the blog and the content and context of the
subject matter make it abundantly clear that the information within is not
legal advice.
Ms. Berube never makes a
claim that she’s giving legal advice and never claims she’s a lawyer or
paralegal. It strains credulity that Mr. Idiot Paralegal “gets confused” and
thinks that Ms. Berube is providing legal advice.
Popular posts written by
Ms. Berube include but are not limited to:
“The Stripper with the Dirty Feet” (Schedule J)
“Attention Mr. Evan Sidallhttps://landlordrescue.ca/attention-mr-evan-sidall/” asking CMHC to please rework the methodology of the vacancy rate in Canada. (Schedule K)
“Evictions – The Travels of Jimmy the Cat” is actually about the three evictions I was dealing with late 2015. However, it’s clear in the story that I’m a property manager and that I hired Anonymous Paralegal to do the legal work.(Schedule L )
I’ve praised a lot of members of the Law
Society and other suppliers of goods and services on www.landlordrescue.ca,
Tim Baker, who helped me with my Trademark dispute (Schedule M) and my previous accountant Kostas Poularakis and Mr. Anonymous Paralegal.
Classic Fire Protection who is one of the only companies in the GTA who installs residential fire sprinkler systems. (Schedule N)
David Strashin was called a “Landlord Super Hero” after he helped my property management client and I evict a tenant who had appealed his eviction to Divisional Court. (Schedule O)
In none of these stories
is there ever a claim that I am a lawyer, a paralegal or anything other than a
property manager.
7 – Mr. Idiot Paralegal alleges that the
website “leaves impression that Mr. Anonymous Paralegal is an operating and
directing mind of the business and deeply involved into it.”
In earlier allegations, Mr.
Idiot Paralegal complains about Mr. Anonymous Paralegal not knowing anything
about the tenants, the accounting, payment to the Sheriff, rent collection and
whereabouts of the Sheriff receipt. This is completely typical of a third party
legal representative retained by a property manager.
Mr. Idiot Paralegal’s
allegations are in logical opposition to each other. In his own complaint he is
giving evidence to the conclusion that Mr. Anonymous Paralegal has nothing to
do with Landlord Rescue Inc and its property management operations.
On the home page of the
website, there is no mention of Mr. Anonymous Paralegal in any of the articles.
Generally if you would like to know more about a website, you might click the “About”
tab. (Schedule G)
It is very clear that Rachelle Berube is the writer for the site and
that she’s a property manager with a picture of her diploma from George Brown
College.
The purpose of the hundreds of articles posted and written
by Ms. Berube is to drive customers to her business, to gain exposure for her
company, and to educate small landlords.
The only reason Anonymous
Paralegal is on the website is
to avoid countless phone calls for legal services not provided by Landlord Rescue Inc.
All the evidence given
to the investigation points to the very reasonable conclusions that:
- Rachelle
Berube is the writer of all the articles on www.landlordrescue.ca - That
Landlord Rescue Inc and its predecessor Landlord Rescue started in 2007 are
both solely owned and operated by Rachelle Berube. - That
Landlord Rescue Inc from time to time hires Mr. Anonymous Paralegal and other
licensees to prepare and submit Applications to the Landlord and Tenant Board
and attend Hearings at the Landlord and Tenant Board in compliance with the
law. - There is
no inappropriate linking between Mr. Anonymous Paralegal and Landlord Rescue
and Ms. Berube. - That no
one, except the author Rachelle Berube, has any control over the content that
is written on the blog, including but not limited to Mr. Anonymous Paralegal. - Neither
Ms. Berube nor Landlord Rescue Inc.
provide unlicensed legal representation. - Ms. Berube
has never once stated that she is a paralegal or a lawyer and often states she
is a property manager in her writings. - Ms. Berube
may write about property management and give legal information and even advice
but this is not giving “legal advice”. “Legal advice” by definition can only be
given by a lawyer or paralegal and not members of the general public. - Members of the general public who write
articles online are not required to write disclaimers such as “I am not a
lawyer, doctor, chef, perfume maker, accountant” simply because doing so is
impractical and the list would inevitably be incomplete.
At best, Mr. Idiot
Paralegal has made a serious error in judgement and jumped to conclusions and
failed to perform the due diligence that a reasonable person would make before
reporting parties to the Law Society of Upper Canada.
At worst, Mr. Idiot
Paralegal has abused the investigative process of the Law Society of Upper
Canada, and been abrasive, rude, abusive, threatening, accusatory and
demonstrated conduct unbecoming a licensee.
We trust that the
materials contained herein satisfy the Law Society of Upper Canada’s
investigator. Where possible, we have provided complete documentation. If you
have any questions or concerns I can be reached at 416-880-4126 or via email rachelle@landlordrescue.ca
Many thanks,
Rachelle Berube
