VANCOUVER — If you are your brother’s keeper, does that commitment extend past your life?
That adage is at the heart of a civil lawsuit that has pitted 84-year-old Frederic Charbonneau against his niece and nephew, who ordered their uncle to start paying rent if he wanted to continue living in their late father’s mobile home park in the East Kootenays.
The family dispute, triggered by the death of Benoit Charbonneau in November 2019, made it all the way to the Appeal Court of B.C., which stepped in to reverse Frederic’s eviction notice in a lower court until the case can be resolved.
Diane and Serge Charbonneau, two of three children named by Benoit as coexecutors of his will, sent a pair of letters to their uncle requesting monthly rent of $350. The first letter was sent letters two months after their father’s death, the second six months later.
They told their uncle that his days of living rent-free in his trailer in the park were over. The park had been turned over to their father’s estate, and was now being operated by a property management company.
Frederic maintains he and Benoit had an agreement that Frederic would provide work and services in exchange for being able to live in the park until he died or decided to move.
In July 2020, the dispute escalated. Frederic was served with a lawsuit that evicted him from the property and asked for damages for trespassing.
His niece and nephew then filed an application for a default judgment and the following February, a B.C. Supreme Court judge granted them a summary judgment that would force Frederic to leave and prevent him from trespassing on the property.
The judge granted the summary judgment in her chambers without a trial because she ruled “there was no genuine issue to be tried.”
She ruled Frederic hadn’t provided any evidence he and Benoit had an agreement for him to live in the park for life without paying rent.
That move got Frederic’s attention. He got a lawyer and appealed that ruling to the B.C. Court of Appeal.
A three-justice appeal court unanimously agreed the lower court justice erred in concluding “without analysis” there was no triable issue in granting the summary judgment.
Frederic submitted affidavits from his son, Benoit Charbonneau, and his brother’s third child, Alain, who both testified there was an agreement between Frederic and his brother that he would live in the park in exchange for doing work. Court heard that Frederic paid hydro bills and bought building supplies while working 30 to 45 hours a week on projects with his brother, since 2009.
“He [Frederic] plainly asserted facts sufficient to support a tenancy and that his admission he did not pay rent could not reasonably support a conclusion that no tenancy arrangement existed between the brothers,” wrote Justice Bruce Butler in the oral reasons for judgment.
The Appeal Court granted a stay of the order, pending the appeal.
But rather than send the case back to the Supreme Court, the justices referred it to the director of the Manufactured Home Park Tenancy board to determine if the two brothers had a tenancy agreement.
The estate maintained Frederic’s claim on the spot at the park is one for a “life estate in land,” not a tenancy.
But the justices said the estate did not show evidence there was no tenancy agreement and the onus was on the estate to do so.
“If the [Manufactured Home Park Tenancy Act] does apply, the estate must abide by the eviction provisions set out in the MHPTA if it wishes to terminate the tenancy,” the justices ruled.
