First this is
not a thread about rent control so please don't derail. This is about using the rent control laws to sidestep the one-year condo conversion notice law.
I'm looking for advice from anyone who's got more experience with this than I (especially legal types).
I've been renting an apartment near downtown for about a year. The building was recently sold to a development company who followed the new trend in sidestepping condo conversion notice laws and simply jacked the rent to over $2000, effective in September. Having only been there a year, I was paying $1000/mo for rent already but several tenants are in the $700 range.
From the homeless guys looking for illegal work across the street to the regular prostitutes at the immediate corner to the decaying rodents in the garage, this is
not what you'd call a nice place. Nobody in their right mind would pay $2000/mo for this place, so there's no question as to what the intention of the new owner is.
I recently read the following article where some tenants in Mission had the same situation. Under threat of a class action lawsuit, the new building owner returned the rent to the current amounts and gave the tenants the one-year notice required by law for a condo conversion.
http://communities.canada.com/calgar...after-all.aspx
The tenants were going to watch the progress of the building and if it were converted to condos within the year past the date of the rent increase notice, the author of the article suggested that the tenants would have a legit case against the owner. I know the one-year notice law is new so there's likely no legal precedent for this but does anyone have any idea if we would in fact have a case here?
If so, how would I get it started?