Advantages Condo

Since 1 January 2015, the Civil Procedure Code has been amended to increase from $7,000.00 to $15,000.00 the amount of eligible receivables to the Small Claims section.

You should also know that when a request is made under the Small Claims Division, the parties have no right to counsel under Section 959 of the Civil Procedure Code.

These same rules also apply to the Rental Board and the parties will have no right to counsel for any request whose ONLY object is a debt not exceeding the jurisdiction of the Small Claims section of the Court of Quebec, which now stands at $15,000.00. See section 73 of the Act respecting the Régie du logement.

However, you should know that regardless of the amount requested, as soon as a request for rent reduction, termination of the lease or ruling has been made, and this regardless of the amount requested, which is also part of the request of the Régie du logement, the owner or tenant can always require the services of a lawyer to represent him.

There remains a concern that a landlord who makes a request of more than $7000.00 before January 2015 and hires a lawyer. The hearing takes place after 1 January 2015: Does he still have the right to counsel?

Section 13 of this new law answers ‘yes’ to this question and determines that the Courts who had jurisdiction at the opening of the file remain seized of this matter. This means that the owner may continue to be represented by his lawyer despite the change.

In any case, you can always get advice from a lawyer before the hearing to help you on file preparation, presentation of your documents, the level of evidence required and the course of the proceedings including the preparation of the witnesses.

Finally, you should know that in the fall of 2015, governmental authorities will implement a completely new amended Code of Civil Procedure. Follow the columns in the newspaper to learn about the new provisions of this Code that will affect you. We’ll deal with this in future editions.