BATTLEFORD – Two long-time cabin owners have been forced out of their homes after losing a legal battle with Suffern Lake Regional Park Board.
Leases on separate cabins owned by John Danilak and Lisa Wildman expired Jan. 1, 2021, and the board has refused to renew their leases. According to court documents, Danilak owned his cabin for 32 years and Wildman lived in her cabin all year, which she bought in 2013 for $59,000 and spent $30,000 on renovations.
In his written decision, Justice Lyle W. Zuk gave the cabin owners six months to either sell or move their cabins from the lots at Suffern Lake Regional Park. If they fail to comply, the Sheriffs in Battleford will be ordered to take possession of the two lots.
Dispute between cabin owners and park board
Justice Zuk said the tenants’ refusal to pay rent “was a form of protest in an attempt to highlight alleged park wrongdoings.” He added, however, that their failure to pay rent was a breach of the lease terms and the park had the right to evict them.
“The tenants, if they wished to expose alleged park wrongdoing, had other options available to them,” said Justice Zuk in his May 20 written decision at Battleford Court of Queen’s Bench. “The conscious and willful decision not to pay rent was not an appropriate option and placed the tenants in breach of a material term of the lease agreement.”
Rather than pay rent to the park board, the tenants had offered to put the money in trust until wrongdoing could be proven or disproved.
Justice Zuk ruled that even though regional park tenants have an expectation that the park will renew an expiring lease, the park isn’t legally obligated to do so, especially in the absence of a renewal clause and the tenant is in breach of the lease agreements.
“The tenants chose not to pay the annual lease fees for their respective lots and doubled down on their efforts to discredit the park board by writing to Ministers of the Provincial Crown and the Premier complaining about their treatment at the hands of the park,” wrote Justice Zuk.
Court documents show that the park board wanted the tenants gone saying they experienced “significant trouble,” with the tenants for a number of years.
The cabin owners, however, accused the park board of retaliating against them for bringing the board’s alleged wrongdoings out in the open. They wanted their case to go to a trial saying they wanted to present the court with the board’s alleged improper management and administration of the park.
Court documents reveal that the tenants accused the board of manipulating property assessments, which resulted in unfairly high property assessments on those two lots. They also made allegations about how the board was spending lottery proceeds, made decisions that favoured board members and their families, and manipulated property assessments for properties owned by themselves and their friends to get lower lease rates.
The park board denied all of the allegations. The board denied manipulating or abusing the assessment process for personal gain and denied any wrongdoing with lottery proceeds.
Justice Zuk ruled that a trial wasn’t necessary to examine the allegations made against the park board, saying they had no relevance to the eviction application.
“The tenants, for their own reasons, steadfastly refused to pay the annual lease fee despite receiving written requests from the park and its legal counsel to do so. The tenants cannot now complain that the park’s decision was based in bad faith; there was ample reason for the park to allow the leases to expire without renewal based on non-payment of rent for three years.”
