Tim Houston’s government announced law changes to the Residential Tenancies Act last week that will benefit landlords and make it easier for tenants to lose their homes. New regulations give landlords more flexibility and power in evicting tenants, proposing a shorter timeline for filing an eviction notice for late rent and giving landlords more reasons for why they can evict tenants.
All of this while Service Nova Scotia minister Colton LeBlanc says introducing a residential tenancy enforcement unit would just be “bringing more bureaucracy and more red tape,” despite landlords often breaking rules around repairs, illegal application fees and renovictions. And no, there’s nothing to prevent landlords from offering fixed-term leases, allowing them to boot out tenants after the lease expires.
The Nova Scotia Liberals and NDP have both come out against the proposed changes to the Residential Tenancy Act, as have several community organizations. Housing critic Braedon Clark was unimpressed by the lack of an enforcement unit, which was recommended for the province in a report on renting ordered in 2022. And although the changes include extending the current 5% annual rent cap from Dec. 31, 2025 to the end of 2027, NDP leader Claudia Chender derided the rent cap as useless when partnered with current fixed-term-lease legislation, where landlords can kick out tenants and jack up the price of their units as much as they want, ignoring the cap completely.
ACORN Canada also shared a statement on the changes, saying premier Houston’s government is “not interested in fixing the housing crisis.” Dalhousie Legal Aid targeted the rent cap, saying it’s the highest in the country and that it’s far above the 3.5% inflation rate. Despite such criticism, the Houston Progressive Conservatives have a majority in the legislature so can effectively push the proposed changes into law.
New regulations
The changes to the Residential Tenancies Act will allow landlords to begin the eviction process after three days of lapsed rental payment, giving tenants 10 days to pay rent or file a dispute. Landlords previously had to wait 15 days to issue an eviction notice, and tenants had 15 days to pay or dispute. Friday’s press release from the government noted this was one of the “longest eviction timelines in the country.”
There are also clearer conditions that allow a landlord to end a tenancy, including a tenant’s criminal behaviour, disturbing other tenants or the landlord, repeated late rent payments or extraordinary damage to the unit. Tenants are also not allowed to sublet their unit for more than what they pay in rent.
LeBlanc sold these regulations as helpful to both landlords and tenants.
“Given the challenges we’re facing in our rental market, we need to consider the increased costs that landlords face managing their properties,” he says in Friday’s press release. “We need to balance this and extend the cap to help renters who are facing rising costs due to inflation.”
Evicting into homelessness
But the actual policies lean in favour of landlords. While landlords will have to provide their email address to tenants when the changes take effect, if tenants provide theirs, nothing is stopping them from renovicting tenants, taking advantage of fixed-term leases and ignoring repairs. Instead, the government is making landlords’ lives easier at the cost of tenants through swift evictions with a shorter timeline for appeals.
All of this while the Canadian Human Rights Commission finds that evictions in the country contravene human rights law—evicting people into homelessness, evicting families for rent payment arrears of one month or less, and a lack of legal representation to help keep people from losing their homes.
In Dalhousie Legal Aid’s statement, community legal worker Mark Culligan posits that these regulations will lead to an increase in homelessness. He clarifies his statement in an interview with The Coast.
“The changes to the eviction timelines will make it easier for landlords to evict tenants for unpaid rent,” says Culligan. “By far, this is the most common reason for landlords to apply for an eviction.”
Between the affordability crisis and delays that can occur with income assistance and the provincial rent subsidy program, some tenants will be unable to pay rent on time, and will have a much shorter window to address those issues before their landlord can file for an eviction.
This is compounded by yet another issue—legal services such as the Dalhousie Legal Aid Service are already serving folks at capacity. The potential for more evictions means more eviction disputes, stressing a system that is already at its limit, and no doubt leaving some behind with a lack of representation.
“When I heard about the announcement, talking back with my colleagues at the office, the first thing we said is, ‘Oh my gosh, there’s going to be such pressure on such turnaround to file eviction, or applications to set aside eviction notices,’ because we only have intakes with clients once a week,” says Culligan.
Even if a tenant can be represented, they aren’t out of the woods. There’s a process to figure out what a tenant’s options are, as well as applications that often need to be filled out for rental arrears to an income assistance case worker, or money to be canvassed for eviction prevention support.
“All that takes weeks, and with this kind of short turnaround, people are going to be pressured to make applications to set aside eviction just to figure out enough time to figure out what’s going on with your finances.”
While quicker evictions may look like a way to free up housing for others, it’s cyclical—for every person taking a lease on a recently evicted property, another person will potentially be left without a home.
“I think it’s fair to say that by making it easier for landlords to evict people into homelessness, you’re going to find more people evicted into homelessness,” says Culligan.
Yet, the provincial government doesn’t have a plan to deal with the homelessness crisis, other than build homes that will take upwards of a decade to become habitable, as well as an eviction support program which Culligan says isn’t funded well enough. When addressing the issue, Houston has been quick to place blame on municipalities and criticize their actions in addressing it.
So, what can be done? People can continue to encourage the province to fix the fixed-term-lease loophole and introduce a residential tenancies enforcement unit, but from LeBlanc’s statements and from what Service Nova Scotia has told The Coast in the past, neither of these options are being considered, with Culligan adding that the government also rejected the idea of a rent bank.
If you wish to make a stand, ACORN Canada will be holding a rally to ban the fixed-term loophole on Thursday, Sep. 12 at 9am in front of Province House.
