As stated in this recent decision, a license is a permission to use a property, but it does not convey a leasehold interest in the land. With a license, one becomes a licensee; with a lease, one becomes a tenant. As noted by the court, “there are similarities between the rights of tenants and licensees, but they are not the same. The concepts cannot be used interchangeably.”
This issue arose in this case when a person (the “occupant”) entered into an agreement to occupy a plot of land in a trailer park/camp ground. The occupant argued that the document he signed (entitled a “Licence of Occupation”) was akin to a commercial lease, giving him the right to stay and modify his plot of land to suit his needs. The owner of the trailer park disagreed, and eventually served a Notice of Trespass when the occupant refused to take down a fence or the wooden deck built on the plot. The occupant sued the trailer park for damages, and he sued the local police who handcuffed him after being commissioned by the land owner to force the occupant off the property.
The court ruled in favour of the trailer park, concluding that the agreement signed by the occupant was nothing more than a licence to use the plot of land. The court concluded that more was required to “establish a tenancy than merely permission to occupy land for a given period.” The court reasoned that the necessary attributes of a lease were not present in this case: most notably there was no conveyance of exclusive possession. Additionally, the agreement itself was described as a licence, it was completely devoid of an “tenant” related terminology or any references to a lease, and it specifically cited that the signatory was a licencee and that any breach of the Rules of the Park by the occupant would be deemed to be a breach of the license and that the license could be immediately terminated at the option of the park owner. The agreement provided that anyone breaching the Code would be asked to leave the campground immediately, and that the License of Occupation would be cancelled immediately and there would be no refunds.
Being neither a commercial lease nor a residential lease, the governing document was the licence agreement itself: neither the Residential Tenancies Act nor the Commercial Tenancies Act would come into play.
The court concluded that the land owner appropriately relied on the Trespass to Property Act (“TPA”) and called the police, and henceforth the police acted with property authority under the TPA when they arrested the occupant who refused to leave unless forcibly removed. The case was dismissed against all defendants.
Harvey v. Bingemans and Waterloo Region Police, 2022 ONSC 3905
https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onsc/doc/2022/2022onsc3905/2022onsc3905.html