A bailiff delivered a letter to Danny Palladini at 9 a.m. last Friday requesting that he vacate his premises by September 15, as per a judgement from the Régie du Québec.
“I was devastated,” said Palladini. “I was extremely disappointed.”
The judgement, confirming his eviction by the Montreal’s municipal housing authority (OMHM), arrived in the mail a few hours later.
Commissioner Rosario Nobile granted the OMHM request to evict Palladini on August 23. The senior is required to vacate his premises within 11 days of receiving the judgement, even if he decides to appeal. Nobile also ordered Palladini to pay the OMHM a fee of $76 to cover the administrative fees associated with a Régie hearing.
The 70-year-old tenant immediately faxed a letter to the Regie asking for an English translation of the judgement. “I didn’t understand a lot of it. I sent a fax a month ago asking for the judgement in English but they said that I have to receive it in French before asking for a translation.”
He also sent an email to Pierrefonds Dollard MP Lysane Blanchette-Lamothe on Saturday morning, asking for her help. After that, he spent his weekend going through his belongings to figure out what to store and what to sell.
“I’m planning to take all of my stuff and put it in storage,” he said. “I will be looking for accommodation. I think that 15 days is unrealistic, considering that it took 60 days to reach a decision.”
Palladini says that he will be appealing. He hopes his case will be heard by the Quebec Superior Court in early September.
The case has been underway since January 24, 2011 when the OMHM deposited a claim that Palladini’s behaviour “caused a serious prejudice” to other tenants and the landlord. They said that they warned him multiple times that his behaviour was unacceptable. They used letters of complaint from other tenants and testimony from the representative of the OMHM, Sylvie Marchard, to prove their case.
For his part, Palladini says that his eviction came from asking inconvenient questions about who controls the money distributed through tenants’ associations in OMHM buildings. Manoir Roger Bernard has two such associations, the Manoir Roger Bernard Tenants Association, which is registered under NEQ 3367019208 and the Manoir Roger Bernard Pool, which is registered under NEQ 3366664822. Most of the witnesses who complained about his behaviour at the eviction hearings serve as directors on these associations.
Palladini plans to continue pursuing his claims against the directors of the associations. “I want to have these five directors of the associations be forced to answer the questions I have asked. I want to hear what they have to say.”
Note: This article appeared in the Suburban yesterday.
