PEI commission dismisses rental claim after occupant fails to prove tenancy

A man seeking compensation for loss of quiet enjoyment and a return of rent failed to establish that he was the property owner’s tenant, leaving Prince Edward Island’s Residential Tenancy Office without jurisdiction to decide his claims.

The Island Regulatory and Appeals Commission dismissed the appeal in Jean Marc Paille v. Wendall G. Barbour Ltd., 2026 PEIRAC 68, issued October 14. It confirmed the Rental Office’s jurisdiction ruling and dismissed the application, without deciding whether there had been a breach of the Residential Tenancy Act or any entitlement to damages.

The decision did not require a written lease or rule out tenancy agreements arising through conduct. Rather, the Commission found that the evidence as a whole did not show an agreement between this occupant and the owner giving him possession of the apartment as a tenant.

Agreement, not occupancy alone

The Act defines a tenancy agreement to include written or oral agreements, whether express or implied, respecting possession of a rental unit, common areas, services and facilities. The person asserting a tenancy had to establish its existence on a balance of probabilities.

Paille had moved into the apartment in 2018 as the existing tenant’s roommate. He argued that he became a tenant himself in 2022 and that the owner knew about his occupancy and treated him as a tenant.

He relied on the property manager’s knowledge that he lived there, rent receipts bearing his name and discussions about possibly renting a vacant unit to him. His position was that the relationship supported his claim to compensation and repayment of rent.

The company disputed any written or oral agreement with him. It said the existing tenant remained the sole tenant on various documents, and neither that tenant nor the roommate could simply add his name to the tenancy agreement without the company’s agreement. It also pointed to an inconsistency between his account of a 2022 agreement and his earlier evidence before the Rental Office.

The Commission noted a separate evidentiary limitation: documents the company presented as affidavits from the property manager and other tenants had not been properly sworn. They were subsequently described as witness statements.

What the receipts did — and did not — show

The Commission treated the receipts as relevant evidence, but gave them limited weight. Although some carried Paille’s name, they did not identify him as a tenant or otherwise establish that the company had agreed to give him possession in that capacity.

The distinction was between an owner allowing or tolerating someone’s presence and entering into a tenancy agreement with that person. Knowing that someone occupies an apartment does not, by itself, establish a tenancy; a name on a receipt is likewise not conclusive without more.

Considered individually and together, the manager’s knowledge, the receipts and the discussions about another unit did not establish the claimed agreement. The Commission found insufficient evidence that the original roommate arrangement had later been replaced or supplemented by an agreement with the owner, either under the existing tenancy or through a separate tenancy.

The claimed 2022 agreement also lacked independent supporting evidence and was inconsistent with Paille’s earlier account. The Commission therefore found that he had not proved it on the applicable standard. Its reasoning turned on the relationship established by the evidence, not a blanket exclusion of roommates from the Act.

Compensation merits not decided

The company had alternatively argued that the damages claim lacked a material basis even if a tenancy were established. The Commission did not need to resolve that argument. Without the required landlord-tenant relationship, the Rental Office could not decide the claims arising from the alleged tenancy.

The order dismissed the appeal, confirmed Rental Office Order LD26-282 and dismissed the application. It expressly left undecided whether there had been a statutory breach, loss of quiet enjoyment, entitlement to returned rent or damages. The result was a jurisdictional dismissal, not a finding that the alleged interference had or had not occurred.