We now look at Justice Spiescomments in the 2017 decision relating to the Filippelli estate. In this case, one child lived with mom for two years prior to her death. There was a very loose and rarely observed understanding that the son living with the mother would pay some type of rent. The son rarely did and after mother’s death, continued to live in the family home rent free.
The son remaining in the home was not one of the executors and refused to leave.
The executors then asked the court for an Order for vacant possession and also to require the son in the home to pay occupation rent. The son in the home tried a tactic that everyone was in front of the wrong court and rather that this was a residential tenancy matter akin to a landlord and tenant relationship.
The court did not buy it and ordered that the hold over son move out and pay some type of rent. It is interesting to note that there actually had been four payments over a sixteen month period of $650.00 towards the mother. It is not inconceivable that the decision might have gone the other way and holding that indeed there was a landlord and tenant relationship.
