Ontario property owners and renters trying to resolve their issues through the province's Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) have been doomed to months of waiting over the last few years — sometimes without a home — as the agency slowly wades through a tens of thousands-strong backlog of cases.

And, though some improvement has been made since an Ombudsman's report citing "excruciatingly long" delays at what has become a generally "moribund" organization, residents are now demanding further action from the provincial government.

Landlord and Tenant Board practice is creating renter nightmare scenarios in Ontario https://t.co/z8S0jvzhwY

— blogTO (@blogTO) July 7, 2024

A new petition asking Doug Ford to urgently expedite hearings at the board has garnered just under 5,000 signatures since it was launched earlier this month, with tenants, landlords and concerned constituents in general saying that wait times for resolutions have reached "an unacceptable level."

"These prolonged waiting times for hearings at the LTB have created a dire situation for tenants and landlords alike," the change.org appeal, created October 10, reads.

"Tenants and landlords [are being left] in a state of distress and financial instability as they wait for hearings that can take between four to eight months to be scheduled. The ramifications of these delays extend far beyond mere inconvenience, impacting the lives and livelihoods of many Ontarians."

More Ontario landlords are sharing tenant horror stories amid tribunal backloghttps://t.co/KpcjzUP5UT

— blogTO (@blogTO) August 14, 2024

It continues on to call for more resources to be funnelled into the board, for its processes to be vastly streamlined in light of the acute situation, for greater transparency for all stakeholders involved, and for temporary relief measures for those facing "extreme financial hardship" due to the lengthy hold ups in getting their case heard.

All of this has the end goal of ensuring "fair and timely" hearings, as the LTB should offer, but has in many ways failed to for the last five years.

As overseeing group Tribunal Watch Ontario stated in a damning review in February, "the LTB has been failing badly since 2019, when the current Government began removing its experienced adjudicators and moved the LTB under the leadership of Tribunals Ontario, a mega-cluster of tribunals."

"Despite increased funding and more staff and more adjudicators than ever before, the delays remain crushing and the number of cases resolved each year has continued to drop."

A landlord form 📍Couburg Ontario shares a shocking video of a trashed house. pic.twitter.com/1CTlCLment

— blogTO (@blogTO) February 24, 2024

That release counted a pileup of some 53,000 cases and a tenfold increase in wait times for the board to deliberate on all sorts of cases of errant landlords and tenants, from the former attempting unlawful evictions to the latter owing tens of thousands in rent and refusing to vacate.

And, with further protections for renters on the way, the board's services will likely be in more demand than ever in the months to come.