Muhammad Hamza, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter, The Pointer

On November 20, fire erupted inside a home on Banas Way in the northwest part of Brampton. Some residents of the house were able to make a dramatic escape by climbing onto the roof, but when the smoke cleared, five people were dead, and four more were in the hospital.

Since the tragedy, Mayor Patrick Brown has made accusations against the property owner, describing him as an “absentee landlord” and claiming previous inspection requests by the City of Brampton were not complied with. 

Through his lawyer, the landlord, Nitin Betrabet (who owns the house with his wife), refuted Brown’s allegations and told The Pointer he is only out of town for planned one or two-week vacations, and regularly communicated with the tenants.

Betrabet said the City of Brampton had not previously contacted him and there were no inspection requests, to his knowledge.

“The property was lawfully tenanted and the tenant lease was signed for the entire house in March 2023,” Betrabet told The Pointer through his lawyer. “This lease only allowed four adults and one child to reside at the property.”

The cause of the fire has yet to be determined, and the investigation is ongoing.

According to Peel Police, the residence was a multigenerational home, and, despite what the owner disclosed about the lease which only allowed four adults and one child, there were a total of 11 people “associated” with the address (who stayed at the house but might not have been there at the time of the tragedy).

“Additional person(s), if any, visiting or otherwise residing at the house was/were without the knowledge and authorization of the landlord,” the lawyer said. “To imply that the landlord is responsible for more than 5 adults and a child at the property is factually incorrect.” The landlord and tenants had a “good working relationship”. 

Betrabet, through his lawyer, said he “never made any alteration to the property” and kept it as “a single family unit…a single family residence only.” 

Peel Police spokesperson Constable Tyler Bell-Morena told reporters that there might have been a “sub-unit” at the time of the fire. He stressed that this has not yet been confirmed. According to the landlord’s comments to The Pointer he was unaware of any sub-unit on the property.

The Pointer searched the City’s Additional Residential Unit registry; and the two-unit dwelling registry to check if a sub-unit was registered under the property at 12 Banas Way. The address does not appear in either database.

It’s unclear how accurate the two-unit registry is; it has not been updated since 2023, when it had more than 18,000 units listed. The ARU registry has more than 28,000 units.

The tragic incident has once again raised questions about housing safety in Brampton, something the municipality has been grappling with for decades.

Through his lawyer, Betrabet said, “No one should be blaming the victims of tragic events and the loss of life, nor should this tragedy be used to support facts that are not true. We all should endeavour to avoid speculations and unsupported inferences.” 

Despite his concerns of speculation, Peel Police reported the possibility of a sub-unit, though no cause for the fire has yet been disclosed by officials. The entire home has since been demolished due to the extensive fire damage.

Brampton has for decades faced public safety concerns over the number of unregistered secondary suites in the city, often called basement apartments, and the difficulty of enforcing fire code requirements such as proper ventilation, fire doors and the use of heating sources for warmth and food preparation that are legally allowed. 

It was estimated that 50,000 illegal units operated in the city as of 2022. Policies and enforcement efforts to units into compliance with various bylaws have either been poorly conceived, understaffed, or not prioritized by council members including the mayor who have been aware of the risks posed by these units for years. 

Despite his moves to freeze the City budget for years, which put residents at risk due to the lack of inspections carried out by a bylaw department that has been chronically understaffed, Brown was quick to jump on the tragedy and point fingers.

“The homeowner, who is an absentee landlord, is out of the country for an extended period and submitted a building permit application to create a second dwelling unit in the basement,” he told reporters outside the home on November 20.

“The building permit was issued for a required set of work to be completed, including the homeowner’s duty to request an inspection for completed work. There were a number of times when the City went to inspect the location; it resulted in an order to comply being issued on the property.”

Betrabet, through his lawyer, Sukhi Baidwan, responded.

“The landlord(s) maintains that to the best of their knowledge, and as of today, they did not receive any communication from the city of Brampton on this file, nor were they aware of any inspection requests. The LL never denied any request for inspection by the city. Further to the best of the LL’s knowledge, there were no known court  proceedings by the city or if LL breached any bylaw for this property for more than 10 years they owned this property.”

Pushing back against “misinformation”, Baidwan wrote that, “This property at 12 Banas Way, Brampton is/was a 4 bedroom house with an additional partially finished basement which included a rec room, bathroom and a 5th bedroom as provided by the builder and approved by the city planner and purchased as a new construction. There were no alterations or constructions done on the property since its purchase from the builder.”

It appears the City of Brampton went after the property owner after the fire. Baidwan, the lawyer, wrote, “On Nov 25, 2025, for unknown reasons the Brampton city inspectors visited LL’s (landlord’s) primary residence and other rental property at 33 Spadina Road, Brampton. The city inspector gave a violation ticket for 33 Spadina Rd. The violation ticket alleges that on Nov 25, 2025, 33 Spadina Rd was found to be in contravention of City by-laws for operating a rental housing unit without a licence. But the city inspector in August 2024 confirmed in writing that there is no requirement to list the property 33 Spadina Rd because it is a condominium unit and returned the application by the LL to register 33 Spadina Rd, Brampton.” 

City of Brampton spokesperson Sevdia Rama, responded to questions via email: “In August 2019, there was a Bylaw Enforcement investigation at the subject property regarding an illegal basement rental. Through late 2019 and early 2020, Enforcement continued attempts to inspect; access was first refused by a tenant and later granted, at which point the basement was found furnished with a locked separation between units. The owner was directed to remove the lock and restore the home to a single dwelling, and the file was closed in November 2020 upon confirmation of compliance by Bylaw Enforcement.”  

In December 2020, the owner applied for a building permit for the creation of an Additional Residential Unit (ARU), which was issued.

“In 2022, the property owner was directed in writing by the City to schedule outstanding inspections associated with the building permit. The owner continued not to request the required building code inspections,” Rama wrote.

“As a result, unreported or inaccessible construction work may remain unverified until triggered by complaints, observed conditions, or information that meets the threshold for enforcement escalation, which was not the case with the subject property since having the permit issued.” 

The City’s account conflicts with much of what the landlord has suggested in writing through his lawyer.

Responding to Brown’s claims that the owners are “absentee landlords”, Betrabet’s lawyer wrote: “Recently, and during this summer of 2025, the landlord did the duct cleaning while being present at the property, thereafter had the appliances repaired, and was at the property on Oct 23, 2025… Prior to the tragic fire incident, the landlord was in touch with the tenant on Oct 30, 2025.” 

Fire safety has long been a struggle in Brampton, where poor leadership by mayors and councillors has led to inadequate housing stock and the proliferation of illegal units that pose various risks to tenants. 

Even Brampton PC MPP Amarjot Sandhu has been charged with operating an illegal secondary suite in the city.

Of the 595 residential fire incidents that occurred in Brampton between 2015 and 2019, 56 of them started in a basement apartment, and 51 of them were not legally registered with the city.

Former councillor Jeff Bowman took the lead on the issue and advocated throughout the last council term for an improved secondary suite registration framework, better fire inspection legislation and increased bylaw enforcement in the city. He said Brampton fire department data showed about 80 percent of basement fires in a two-year period between 2020 and 2022 involved illegal units.

Bowman repeatedly warned that more deaths would result from inaction, and criticized Brown and councillors who offered little more than lip service while they supported the mayor’s drastic budget cuts, such as Rowena Santos.

He told The Pointer this week that it was hard for him to see Brown and Santos in the media after the devastating fire, claiming they have pushed for change.

“Where were the mayor and Rowena Santos when myself and others in the community were begging for reforms to save lives. I received nothing but criticism from them when myself and others on council and in the community were trying to help change the rules for fire and building code inspection, and how we should have been using secondary suite legal registration to keep tenants safe.”

While Bowman criticized other current council members who served last term, he singled out Brown and Santos.

“They criticized me when I approached Steven Clark myself to make changes on the provincial side. I warned apathy would cost lives. I lost sleep at night. I asked, ‘how many people have to die?’ And so many have died. And it’s going to keep happening as long as politicians, at all levels, do nothing more than offer lip service when they draw attention to themselves every time a tragedy occurs.”

In late February 2023, former Fire Chief Bill Boyes told Council that 2022 was the most tragic year in Brampton for fire deaths, when ten residents lost their lives.

Five of the deaths that year happened in March, when survivors at one home said there were no working smoke detectors in the house, located on Conestoga Drive, in the area of Kennedy Road and Sandalwood Parkway, which was under renovation when the tragedy struck.

In 2025, residents are still dying.

At the home that burned on November 20, Brown tried to credit himself for advocating to curb illegal rental units across the city (Police and fire officials have not determined the cause and there has been no determination of any illegal unit at the property), despite opposing the efforts led by former councillor Bowman.

“In fact, there was a time back in 2019 when I sent a letter to the then Minister of Municipal Affairs, Stephen Clark, who is a close friend of Patrick Brown, and I was asking for a change… and at that time, the mayor did not support me on that effort,” Bowman told The Pointer in an interview.

“There were a couple of councillors as well who went online and criticized me for trying to take that approach to invade people’s privacy about going into their homes.”

In 2019, he wrote a letter to Premier Doug Ford’s office pleading with him to give city bylaw enforcement more powers to inspect homes suspected of having non-compliant secondary suites. The letter also asked for amendments to the Fire Protection and Prevention Act (1997) and the Building Code Act (1992) to empower municipal officials to enter homes they suspect of having an illegal rental unit without a warning.

Instead, two months later, he received a response that left him “disappointed and surprised.”

“Current provisions allow municipal inspectors, with a warrant or the occupier’s consent, to enter and inspect units (including basement apartments) that are suspected of being unsafe,” former municipal affairs minister Steve Clark wrote back, at the time, without elaborating—a response Bowman characterized as “dumb”.

“I consider the letter from my standpoint a little condescending,” Bowman told The Pointer in 2019. “We’ve asked him to work on a problem, a big problem, the city is having. His response is basically, ‘get a warrant.’ Does he really expect us to go out and get 25,000 warrants to enter the illegal apartments we have in Brampton? I mean, come on! Who is going to pay for that? Is he going to pay for not only the time it takes to prepare the paperwork to go in and get the warrant, [but also] the court time it takes when we issue the warrants and go out and investigate? Kind of a dumb answer if you ask me.”

He says the tragedy at Banas Way could have been prevented.

“I have been complaining personally about this issue since 2015; that’s 10 years ago.”

And now, after 10 years, we have another “terrible tragedy” he says. “And to say, ‘Oh, I’m doing everything I can,’ that’s not a good enough answer. You know, things should have been put in place a long, long time ago to ensure something like this wouldn’t happen, and they weren’t. You know, 10 years is a long time.”

In response to the Banas Way fire, Brampton council just passed a motion to expand the controversial Residential Rental Licensing (RRL) program in Wards 2 and 8, starting from 2026 until December 1, 2028. 

After years of budget cuts forced by Brown, the City will finally hire four fire prevention officers to support the expansion in 2026. In the early phases of the project, education efforts will be led by the officers to inform landlords and tenants about program requirements and the importance of maintaining safe rental conditions.

In subsequent phases, inspections will focus on properties with a history of complaints and unlicensed rental units. The expansion into Wards 2 and 8 will add approximately 3,666 additional registered units to the program and will introduce more complex requirements for basement units, resulting in longer inspection and follow-up timelines.

If landlords fail to comply with license conditions, the graduated penalties are $600 for a first offence, $900 for a second and $1,200 for any subsequent offence.

Bowman said he hopes no one else in Brampton will suffer due to failed leadership, which has ignored the need for fire resources in a rapidly growing city, better inspection protocols and dozens more staff to ensure residents are kept safe, which he blames Brown for neglecting, after years of his forced budget cuts.

“A lot of fires are easily preventable. But some just never should happen.”

Email:muhammad.hamza@thepointer.com

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