So let me explain my situation:

After I and all my housemates signed our lease again in March, our landlord announced that he would be showing the house to sell it. We got pissed off at him (since this wasn't mentioned in the original lease agreement), and so he agreed to not try and sell it until after our contract ends. What he said he was going to do though during the summer was "renovate" the basement to make it look nicer when he eventually does sell it. That is where my and one of my housemate's rooms are.

So I moved all my stuff up to the main floor in May and told my landlord he was okay to start construction. My housemate in the basement was/is staying for the summer though, so he never bothered to move his crap out (even though another one of my housemates on the 2nd floor offered to lend him his room for the summer).

So anyway, my room got completely demolished, along with the basement bathroom, and a giant hole was dug down into the concrete to rearrange the pipes for the washroom (pretty sure without a permit..). They never forced my housemate in the basement to move.

So now floor has been fixed with new concrete, and the framing is up for the new walls. The only thing though is, the layout makes zero sense. Basically, my landlord took a huge chunk out of my room (making it an L shape instead of a square like it used to be) and turned the piece into the bathroom. He moved the washing machines/dryer out of the furnace room, and now they're literally a foot from the stairs down to the basement outside my room. The door for the bathroom isn't in yet, but the depth is only about 3.5 feet (a sink and toilet will be behind the door), so I don't think it will even be able to open all the way (meaning I'll have to shuffle into the washroom sideways).

So basically the furnace room is twice as big as it used to be (even though it's almost completely unused), the bathroom is about a third as large as it used to be, my room is about 25% smaller and the hallway into the basement is about 2.5 feet wide (same as a standard door)... and my housemate's room is the same size because he never left it. What I think may be going on is my landlord is trying to make it look like the furnace room is another bedroom, which would make the house market as a 6 person house when he sells it, rather than a 5.

The worst part is, my landlord is still charging me rent throughout all this. I emailed him before the construction asking if I had to pay rent, and he was like "Oh ya, don't worry about that, we'll figure it out later", but I'm still seeing that my cheques for those months are being cashed... even though my room hardly exists.

They started in May, and it's hardly complete.

On top of that, the living room has a hole in the ceiling that's slowly been forming throughout the year (about 15 cm in diameter now), which we think is from water damage from the bathroom on the second floor. We told the landlord, and he kind of just sighed and didn't do anything about it.

So I'm looking online now, and there is a surprisingly huge number of rooms available elsewhere.

Do you guys think what I've said is enough reason for me to break the contract on this house?

Thanks.

Christ Almighty!

Well first, if your landlord is having a renovation done without a permit (or not done under the review of a building inspector), I'm pretty sure that is a sufficient enough reason to leave. The other things you've mentioned (like the leak in the ceiling) also would violate building codes, so again, you definitely have a good reason to abandon ship; your rental agreement wouldn't hold much water if a 3rd-party were to look over the situation, considering the number of violations your landlord has accumulated versus your breaking of your rental agreement.

Aside from whether it's logical, in my opinion I think you should get out of there as soon as possible - with a landlord like that, who knows what other madness you'll have to go through. This may only be the tip of a very large iceberg!

(Also, if you are looking for a room, there may be one opening up in my house, which is A) practically brand-new and B) has an amazing landlord - if you're interested, send me a message)

I definitely think you should move out ASAP. You're definitely not getting what you paid for, and your landlord doesn't seem like a reasonable person to deal with. In terms of your legal rights, I don't know much, but there are some brochures I found online from Community Legal Education Ontario (CLEO) that might help. I've attached them here

The off-campus resource centre can also help advise you of your rights and how to go about terminating your lease.

Good luck!

if the landlord is doing renovations in your room that prevents your from living there then you shouldn't have to pay and if you did i would see if there is a way to sue the guy.

I would get out asap

That fact that your room is now a smaller/different size should be enough of a reason. You didn't know they would change the shape of your room, and personally, the size and shape of the room is like more than half of making a decision to sign.

Get out. He changed the room/living conditions - that's violating a contract, isn't it? I mean, you signed for the square room, not the L. I think you can probably get some of the money back from when he was renovation - if you weren't physically living in that room for the month or whatever the period is, you don't have to pay. He can't say you cost him business by occupying the room, if you couldn't go there, neither could any new tenant. It sounds like your getting charged for empty space.

You landlord sounds so shady, renovating it so it looks like he can market it as a 6 instead of 5 person...

Ya, so I decided to cancel my remaining postdated cheques and got a 9 month lease at a different place (which is only a street from campus and a hell of a lot nicer). I moved all my stuff from my old house to the new one, and have prepared a really long email basically telling my old landlord he's a dumbass in so many words (good luck renting a room that's no where near completion at this late in the summer), which I'm going to send out later today.

I figured moving all my stuff out and leaving the keys in the garage before telling him was a good idea to avoid potentially losing some of it (I'm paranoid).

Wow... that went much more smoothly than I expected.

So I got a response and he was pretty much like "Whatever I still think the basement is gonna be better... cya".

Didn't even have to have a fight :/.

I'd get out of that...landlord sounds like he's going to be a lot of trouble throughout the year...especially with the whole water damage thing and the basement reno you describes sounds ridiculous as well

You might be liable for rent at the house until the room is re-rented. I would have the landlord sign an N11 form with you to retroactively terminate the tenancy for whatever date you moved out so that your liability doesn't continue.

A landlord's violation of the lease doesn't render it void, normally. But you can certainly argue that there was a fundamental breach of the tenancy agreement (that would terminate the tenancy) because of the renovations, i.e. the room was uninhabitable for a period of time, that the room and bathroom are such that you're not getting what you bargained for when you entered into the lease.

There might be some complications if you were a joint tenant and there were spare rooms in the house.
They might just ask you why you didn't just use another room in the house.

Originally Posted by Ownaginatios

So now floor has been fixed with new concrete, and the framing is up for the new walls. The only thing though is, the layout makes zero sense. Basically, my landlord took a huge chunk out of my room (making it an L shape instead of a square like it used to be) and turned the piece into the bathroom. He moved the washing machines/dryer out of the furnace room, and now they're literally a foot from the stairs down to the basement outside my room. The door for the bathroom isn't in yet, but the depth is only about 3.5 feet (a sink and toilet will be behind the door), so I don't think it will even be able to open all the way (meaning I'll have to shuffle into the washroom sideways).

Get out of there lol

lol, so I decided to look around the off-campus housing to see if my old landlord ever put my old room up for rent again (he still hasn't informed my last housemates I'm gone), and I noticed he now has two basement rooms for rent.

That means he did what I though - he took space from my room to make another room lol.

On top of that, they're available as of January first, which means that he didn't even finish construction.

What a douchebag. lol. Glad I got out of there :p.