Freemen on the land are growing exponentially

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by photon

Personally I'd rather not have police have the power to just boot anyone out of any property they want just based on the word of the landlord...

The police can't just step in and play judge.

You nailed it on the head. Police don't have carte blanche powers. There's not much police can do in this matter without an eviction notice from a judge with a police enforcement clause.

[PsYcNeT]

Someone should direct that lady to this judge in Edmonton:

http://canlii.ca/en/ab/abqb/doc/2012...12abqb571.html

Amazing teardown of the entire Freeman idea and how it applies (or, doesn't as it were) in Canada.

[photon]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I just saw this story on the CFCN news (come back BARB!) and the woman was fretting over utility bills that she's on the hook for.

Now maybe I'm missing something really obvious here, but why can't (or doesn't) she just cancel them all? Why can't she just let this moron freeze in the dark?

It is a duplex, so maybe turning off the gas isn't feasible, but the electricity?

I imagine that that would fall under the place having to be habitable portion of the act, and if she did that she'd probably have to face some fines.

In some areas, the tenant can be 100% responsible for the utilities and if they rack up a huge amount and disappear, then the utility has to chase the tenant directly. Disconnect/reconnect is all up to the tenant.

In other areas (sounds like Sylvan is one of them) even if the utilities are under the tenant's name, the landlord is ultimately responsible and all charges will go back to the landlord if the tenant doesn't pay. I think in those areas the utilities will keep the landlord informed if things go bad, or at least copy the landlord on bills, or something like that. This is from memory from when I had a property in Lethbridge and they were like that.. EDIT: Oh yeah Chestermere is like that too, town of Chestermere contacted us after a tenant got a few months behind.

Anyway, just because one side isn't fulfilling 100% of their obligations to the agreement doesn't mean the other side can just arbitrarily decide what they don't have to provide.

There's a process to go through, and this lady for some reason has avoided going through it for two years, despite being in contact with people from the government, so either there's something strange going on that's not being reported, or she's avoiding taking him to court or the mediation service for some reason.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by photon

In other areas (sounds like Sylvan is one of them) even if the utilities are under the tenant's name, the landlord is ultimately responsible and all charges will go back to the landlord if the tenant doesn't pay. I think in those areas the utilities will keep the landlord informed if things go bad, or at least copy the landlord on bills, or something like that. This is from memory from when I had a property in Lethbridge and they were like that.. EDIT: Oh yeah Chestermere is like that too, town of Chestermere contacted us after a tenant got a few months behind.

From the article:

Caverhill rented half a duplex she owns in Calgary’s upscale Parkdale neighbourhood to a new tenant in November, 2011, on the recommendation of a friend.

Rental property would be subject to Calgary's laws, not those of Sylvan Lake.

[fredr123]

Originally Posted by RougeUnderoos

I just saw this story on the CFCN news (come back BARB!) and the woman was fretting over utility bills that she's on the hook for.

Now maybe I'm missing something really obvious here, but why can't (or doesn't) she just cancel them all? Why can't she just let this moron freeze in the dark?

It is a duplex, so maybe turning off the gas isn't feasible, but the electricity?

On top of other things, cutting the utilities would be a violation of the Public Health Act. AHS might come in and declare the place uninhabitable and force the Freeman to leave, but the landlord would be on the hook for some serious fines.

[photon]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

From the article:Rental property would be subject to Calgary's laws, not those of Sylvan Lake.

Oh right. Calgary utility companies may have changed how that works recently too then, I haven't dealt with that kind of issue for quite a while, I know they used to deal only with the tenant (I had a tenant run up a big debt with one of the electrical ones and I didn't have to pay it, but that was many years ago).

[Locke]

Originally Posted by NuclearPizzaMan

Do you report them to the CRA as possible tax evaders? Can someone do that?

You can, but theres not much CRA can do about it. A big part of the problem in dealing with 'Freemen' is that they're practically impossible to pin down.

[photon]

Well we know where one of them lives

[bizaro86]

Originally Posted by photon

Wow, that's insane. She really needs to hire a property manager (and at this point a lawyer), what's happened to her is terrible but that's a perfect example of going into business not having any idea of what they're getting in to.

The whole "embassy" issue is completely irrelevant, that is not stopping her from going through the process that she should be going through to evict the tenant.

The police can't just step in and play judge.

I don't understand how this has gone on this long. The guy hasn't paid his rent, either go to court or RTDS and get an eviction, then hire a bailiff. Am I missing something here? (I've never had to evict any of my tenants, but looked into it before I started buying rentals)

Also, this is an excellent example of why someone should never hire tenants to do work in their place. Hire a contractor and rent to a tenant, don't mix the two.

[JobHopper]

That lady should also sue this guy for emotional distress. This is a lot to put up with and enough to really stress someone out especially an older person or anyone for that matter.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by photon

Well we know where one of them lives

Haha yeah!

In my experience though, a lot of these guys work for cash and then file zero-returns, as long as their returns are up to date with CRA they can get away with this for a fairly long time.

There are lots of plausible reasons why someone would have 'zero' income, so they dont investigate all of them. The real flag is 'zero' income with an inconsistent address.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by fotze

What was that boobs username again?

Tower?

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by GGG

This is what I don't get about Freeman, If they don't want to be part of the country then don't use any services provided by that country.

Philisophically I like the idea of being able to opt out of society. Citizenship should be a choice, a contract that you willfully enter into. Otherwise the governments only athority exists based on its ability to enforce its power through Police, Propaganda, and Military. I would perfer to think of a country of an area where a group of people have decided to follow a set of social norms for the greater good.

However Freeman think that they can opt out of any obligation to the government while still recieving all of the benefits.

Kind of sounds like a certain group from a Province out east.

I don't quite understand. I thought I heard that he was given an eviction notice. Wouldn't the next step be just hire a bailiff and get him out? What possibly could he do to string this along this long?

[PsYcNeT]

Originally Posted by Robbob

Kind of sounds like a certain group from a Province out east.

I don't quite understand. I thought heard that he was given an eviction notice. Wouldn't the next step be just hire a bailiff and get him out? What possibly could he do to string this along this long?

Take it to court and bog down proceedings with piles of rambling paperwork. Check out my link above to see the judge in Edmonton detail how the guy tried to derail his divorce case with mounds of stupid garbage.

[Locke]

So, what you're saying is that Freemen on the Land want to pick and choose which rules apply to them at their convenience?

They sound like cyclists.

[Robbob]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Take it to court and bog down proceedings with piles of rambling paperwork. Check out my link above to see the judge in Edmonton detail how the guy tried to derail his divorce case with mounds of stupid garbage.

I could see a divorce being a little more complicated, but Alberta seems to favour the the home owner if they can prove damage, not paying rent, etc. The fact that there was an eviction notice already ignored would make me think that if it went to court the judge wouldn't really have to look at anything else.

[PsYcNeT]

It's the quote "I reject your reality and substitute my own." except replace reality with laws.

[19Yzerman19]

Originally Posted by PsYcNeT

Take it to court and bog down proceedings with piles of rambling paperwork. Check out my link above to see the judge in Edmonton detail how the guy tried to derail his divorce case with mounds of stupid garbage.

The case you cited (which was posted earlier by a couple of others) is essentially the solution to this problem, because it can now be referred to and OPCA litigation strategy summarily dismissed. The case I posted is a good example (http://www.canlii.org/en/on/oncj/doc...13oncj160.html)

There is an ancient proverb to the effect that “those whom the gods would destroy, they first make mad”. The prospect of disentangling Mr. Duncan’s adopted argument and his volume of internet-derived gibberish made me wonder if, for some reason, the gods had me in their cross-hairs. This concern, however, was dissipated in mid-September, 2012 when the gods made their benevolent nature clear.

If December 7, 1941 is a day that will live in infamy, for anyone faced with “freemen on the land”or similar litigants, 18 September, 2012 is a day that will shine in virtue. On that day, Mr. Justice J.D. Rooke, the Associate Chief Justice of the Alberta Court of Queen’s Bench, delivered a judgment in the matrimonial case of Meads v. Meads 2012 ABQB 571 (CanLII), 2012 ABQB 571. Given that the judgment weighs in at a mammoth 736 paragraphs, I wonder if these litigants are perhaps more prevalent in wild rose country than they are in Ontario. Be that as it may, Justice Rooke’s comprehensive judgment on what he labels “Organized Pseudolegal Commercial Argument Litigants” (of various iterations), wonderfully frees me from having to address any more effort to the jurisdictional arguments raised by Mr. Duncan. As I have said, there is a lot of patent rubbish on the internet; if Mr. Duncan wishes to while away a few hours more productively on something that actually makes sense, I commend Justice Rooke’s judgment on CanLII.org to him.

There is no merit to Mr. Duncan’s jurisdictional argument. Such arguments are a waste of the court’s time and resources, a selfish and/or unthinking act of disrespect to other litigants and deserving of no further attention, energy or comment.

Boom. Done.

[photon]

Originally Posted by Robbob

I could see a divorce being a little more complicated, but Alberta seems to favour the the home owner if they can prove damage, not paying rent, etc. The fact that there was an eviction notice already ignored would make me think that if it went to court the judge wouldn't really have to look at anything else.

Unfortunately even in Alberta the courts are quite heavily slanted towards the tenants..

First would be is if the eviction notice was even legal. If it isn't done properly, having all the correct information, then it isn't valid. I even had this happen to me once, I forgot to include one piece of necessary information.

Not valid, back to square one.

Then the judge will usually give the tenant a lot of consideration.. the tenant can give a financial hardship story, bring a few hundred to make a partial payment, and the judge will give them extra time to pay.. or setup a repayment schedule over six months. Go into court again when they get behind again, judge will give them some more extra time. This can take 6 months or more to get resolved.

(There are better ways to do it apparently, ones that don't take very long, or so I've been told when talking to some bailiffs, I've never had the opportunity to use one of their ways)

Because the guy has done much internal "work", that should make it easier (24 hour eviction notice and faster court), but because she contracted him to do the work, that might make it more complex, I don't know for sure.

And throw in the FMoTL nonsense that can make a court session near impossible, well who knows how easy or hard it would actually turn out to be.

BUT that's still the step she needed/needs to take.

IF she had done that and the FMoTL garbage had frustrated the courts so that she was still waiting for the court to deal with that, THEN I would say there's a big story here.

[CaptainCrunch]

Originally Posted by Robbob

Kind of sounds like a certain group from a Province out east.

I don't quite understand. I thought I heard that he was given an eviction notice. Wouldn't the next step be just hire a bailiff and get him out? What possibly could he do to string this along this long?

Frackin Saskatchewaners