Released on August 3, 2016
More than 300 decisions made by Office of Residential Tenancies (ORT) hearing officers are now available on the Canadian Legal Information Institute (CANLII) website.The ORT’s goal is to post roughly 10 per cent of the decisions it makes annually, with a focus on those that will be most useful in providing guidance to landlords and tenants.
“Making these decisions publicly available is a great way to ensure the Office of Residential Tenancies remains transparent and accountable to the public,” Justice Minister and Attorney General Gordon Wyant said. “It also helps improve access to justice by providing an easily-accessible tool for landlords and tenants to use to research ways to resolve their own rental disputes.”
Using this tool, landlords and tenants will be able to refer to past decisions for guidance on appropriate conduct and avoiding problems. If issues still arise, the online decisions may be used to settle claims by showing landlords and tenants the likely outcome of a hearing. Lastly, decisions may be cited as precedent during hearings.
“The landlord-tenant disputes we see at the ORT often deal with the same general issues,” Office of Residential Tenancies Director Dale Beck said. “Making these decisions available online gives landlords and tenants a roadmap to show how similar disputes to theirs have been resolved in the past, and how their disputes could potentially be resolved without resorting to an ORT hearing.”
The decisions can be found at www.canlii.org/en/sk/skort/.
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For more information, contact:
Lesley Dietz
Justice
Regina
Phone: 306-798-4725
Email: lesley.dietz@gov.sk.ca