[1]      The tribunal is seized of two competing applications.

[2]      The landlord’s application (number 153148) was filed on May 6, 2014. Here, it seeks to resiliate the lease on the ground that the rent is frequently paid late. It also seeks to recover the rent for May 2014 in the amount of $ 680.

[3]      On June 4, 2014, the tenant filed an application (158149) wherein she seeks to be authorized to deposit the rent at the Greffe of the Tribunal. In support of this request, she alleges that the landlord’s representatives « refuse to accept my cheque for the monthly payments ».

[4]      On June 26, 2014, the landlord amended its application in order to invoke an additional reason for resiliating the lease : the tenant’s alleged failure to respect an order issued by the administrative judge Serge Adam on June 3, 2011 in the file of the Tribunal bearing the number 31 110413 106.

[5]      On that same day (June 26, 2014) the tenant amended her own application in order to claim $ 45 in material damages and $ 500 in moral damages.

Proof and discussion

[6]      The parties are bound by a residential lease which ran from July 1, 2013 to June 30, 2014 and was subsequently renewed. The tenant pays rent in the amount of $ 680 per month.

[7]      Alas, this is not the first time that the parties have crossed swords at the Tribunal of the Régie.

[8]      In 2011, the landlord prevailed upon the Tribunal to resiliate the lease. It alleged that one month’s rent was outstanding and that the tenant frequently paid the rent in a tardy manner.

[9]      Judge Adam heard the parties on May 27, 2011 and rendered his decision on June 3, 2011. Having concluded that the landlord’s allegation of frequent late payment was well founded, he ordered the tenant to pay the rent on the first day of each month during the term of the lease and any renewal thereof.

[10]   This decision was neither revoked or overturned on appeal.

[11]   Things appear to have gone well until the 6th of May, 2014 when the landlord alleged that the tenant had failed to comply with Judge Adam’s order.

[12]   Before the undersigned, the landlord’s representative alleged that the rent for May 2014 was not received before the 19th or 20th of the month.

[13]   He also maintained that the rent for June and July of 2014 had not yet been paid.

[14]   The tenant denies that she failed to comply with Judge Adam’s order and blames the landlord for having failed to collect her rent cheques in a timely manner.

[15]   The parties admit that that the tenant occupies a dwelling in an apartment building on Emerald Avenue in Côte-Saint-Luc.

[16]   It is also admitted that since 2010, the rent is collected in the following manner : on the first day of each month, an employee of the landlord goes from door to door in order to collect a cheque from each tenant.

[17]   There is no evidence of a schedule which would allow tenants to expect a visit from the « collector » at a specific or approximate time, e.g. between 7 :30 and 8 :30 AM.

[18]   Consequently, it is safe to conclude that from time to time, the collector would find no one at home and be obliged to revisit a given dwelling, perhaps more than once, in order to collect the cheque.

[19]   In spite of its want of precision, this process appears to have worked well in the three years which followed Judge Adam’s order.

[20]   However, on May 1, 2014, the landlord did not receive the tenant’s cheque.

[21]   The tenant maintains that she was at home from the 1^st to the 5th of May but insists that no one came to collect her cheque.

[22]   She did not explain why, on the 1^st of May (a Thursday) she did not call upon the landlord or one of its employees to pick up her cheque without fail. After all, Judge Adam’s order stipulated that the rent was to be paid on the 1st of the month.

[23]   She says that on the following day (the 2^nd of May) she offered her cheque to Bruno - the ostensible « collector » - but was informed that henceforth, the rent cheques were to be remitted to a certain Julius. Rather than seek out Julius or better still, sending a letter of complaint to the landlord immediately, she waited until the the morning of May 5, 2014, when she ran into Julius in the building’s garage. She claims that Julius told her that he was instructed to refrain from collecting the rent because « someone » intended to contact her with regard to a rent increase.

[24]   The tenant did not compel the testimony of either Bruno or Julius.

[25]   The tenant claims that before they parted company, she advised Julius that she would be going out at 10 :30 AM and would return at 8 PM. She says that she was prepared to give him May’s rent cheque. However, on May 6, 2014, the Landlord filed its application at the Régie.

[26]   It was not until May 19, 2014 that the tenant mailed her cheque, dated May 1, 2014 to the landlord. Attached to this cheque was a letter wherein the tenant reproached the landlord for having instructed its employees to refrain from collecting her cheque on the 1^st of May and on the days which followed.

[27]   For his part, the landlord’s representative testified that he went to the tenant’s dwelling on the 4^th and 7th of May. On both occasions, he heard music emanating from the apartment but no one came to the door.

[28]   However, he too failed to call upon Bruno or Julius to testify. Consequently, there is no preponderant proof to the effect that someone called upon the tenant on the first of the month but was unable to collect the rent.

[29]   Judge Adam’s order is clear and it was (and is) incumbent upon the tenant to respect it. However, a contracting party’s obligation to conduct itself in good faith also requires the landlord to adhere, with rigor, to its protocol of rent collection.

[30]   With regard to the landlord’s allegation that the rent for June and July 2014 were not paid, the tenant produced a letter, with a copy of a cheque attached thereto in the amount of $ 680 dated June 1, 2014. The letter is undated but states that as was the case with the month of May, no one came to collect the rent on the 1st of June.

[31]   As for the month of July 2014, the tenant remitted a bank draft in the amount of $ 680 to the landlord’s representative at the hearing. The draft is dated July 3, 2014 but given that the 1^st of July is a national holiday and that the draft is cashable immiediately, the tribunal will give the tenant the benefit of the doubt.

[32]   Given the grave consequences (in this case, the resiliation of the lease) of a party’s failure to comply with an order of the Tribunal, it was incumbent upon the landlord to prove, by preponderance, that the tenant’s failure to pay the rent on the 1^st of the month was either deliberate or attributable to her negligence alone.

[33]   In this regard, the landlord failed to discharge its burden of proof. The tenant’s explanation (i.e. the alleged reluctance of Messrs. Bruno and Julius to collect the rent) was somewhat puzzling but not beyond the realm of possibility. Furthermore, neither of the aforementioned gentlemen were called upon to contradict it.

[34]   With regard to the tenant’s application, the tenant failed to make proof of her alleged damages, whether material or moral. She produced no invoices with regard to expenses and offered no documentary evidence of lost salary. Nor did she convince the tribunal of any « troubles ou inconvénients » which would warrant an award of moral damages.

[35]   The tribunal will dismiss, as well, the tenant’s request that she be authorized to deposit the rent. No preponderant evidence of the landlord’s bad faith has been adduced and the tribunal sees no reason why the parties’ quarrel cannot be resolved by a measure of good will and a healthy dose of common sense.

FOR THESE REASONS, THE TRIBUNAL :

[36]   In the file bearing the number 153148 31 20140506 G :

[37]   DISMISSES the application.

[38]   In the file bearing the number 158149 31 20140604 A :

[39]   DISMISSES the application.