I don't think a precedent has been set yet, but I would pursue it in small claims court if you have evidence as well as clearly documented damages up to $25k.
It will consume some of your time and you need to get your shit together to ensure you appear in the best light possible.
Edit: this assumes your landlord followed the RTA procedure for evicting you because a family member was moving in. Otherwise you're SOL.
When this happened to me the RTB told me they only deal with "current tennancies". Once you move out you have to take them to small claims for any recourse. It is a complicated process, costs money, and has little chance of sucess. Please fix this broken system. We are suffering and you people don't even know what the real problems are.
No "also" about it the RTB will do absolutely nothing. They won't even record the fact that you called. And even if they did rule in your favor they have no enforcement. Tennants rights are purely theoretical at this point and all politicians want to do is protect landlords investments. If they can't manage risk without throwing their tennants under the bus then they deserve to lose their shirts. Maybe if more of them did they'd stop hoarding homes and treating people like peasants.
Yeah, I'm on your side here. But the RTB does have certain powers and them repeatedly hearing these kinds of issues puts more pressure on them to push for changes from government.
The powers and efficacy of the RTB needs to be improved, but they are part of the puzzle.
What I'm telling you is that in the situation described they are powerless. And in most situations where they order money be paid, they have no enforcement. If you want your money you have to go to small claims. The RTB is toothless. The govt needs to step up but they won't because they want to protect their friends who own property.
Agree that they are useless for both tenants and landlords. My wife rented her house and tenant did 30000 in damage. Residential board gave her 300. She almost went bankrupt because of this. They are worse than useless.
That's funny because I have heard absolute first hand horror stories from landlords who are merrly trying to supplement their meagre incomes dealing with tenants who refuse to pay rent, have insane parties, use all kinds of drugs, and trash their propery.
This narrative that you and others are trying to push about the tenants not having rights is, at best a gross exaggeration, and at worst, an egregious lack of intellectual honesty.
That said, I truly hope that the OP is able to get some compensation.
Lol the mla’s are all landlords even the one overseeing housing.
The current party in power is never changing the status quo when it comes to renting. Why would they when they are this far ahead in the polls.
While they are good resources, I don’t believe they’d be much help in this particular situation. Although unethical, there’s technically no legal wrongdoings.
Pretty sure it's illegal to evict someone on a renewing lease to raise the rent.
There only 3 reasons a landlord can evict when the tenants have done nothing wrong. Selling, major renovations, or moving family in.
It is also likely an illegal unit for short term rentals as it’s a secondary suite and is only allowed for 28+ day stays if it’s not their primary residence. Where it is a separate unit it wouldn’t be considered their primary residence.
It's landlords like this that erode the trust and cause stupid rule changes like this -
https://www.canlii.org/en/ns/nssm/doc/2024/2024nssm33/2024nssm33.html
This caused quite a stir in the rental community which I understand.
On another thread,
Someone was moving back to their home for school had all the proof enrolled etc and were declined, now instead of moving back into their home that they are responsible and well within the law to do, they have to rent somewhere else, farther away, etc.
Fascinating. So if a thing would cause another to be homeless, it is illegal to do? Like the bank charging me a mortgage? Or the gov. charging me taxes?
Wow - I read the whole link and really disagree with the verdict (surprised that Im on team landlords!)
How long does an appointment last? Can the daughter request to use the house for personal use in 12 months?
Because if I’m the Simmons family, I’m never giving cheap rent away again - it’ll just screw you over.
That could be used in any argument, ohh you can't afford to pay rent " the equities are in favour of maintaining the status quo and not disrupting the Respondents’ living arrangements."
Oh you are destructive and causing damage .. " the equities are in favour of maintaining the status quo and not disrupting the Respondents’ living arrangements."GB
I'm not sure where in the law this is from?
I think they're saying that: someone was told they legally need to move out, and then that person said no it's too expensive, and the law said oh OK then, you don't have to."
It's setting a precedent... It's killing small/temp landlord share which is going to create a bigger monopoly in this segment, which is bad. It's targeted at smaller property owners who maybe temporary renting due to life changes or longer term goals.
100% there are landlords that abuse this rule, but if you read the case above, the relationship was good, they charged a low amount, etc. the daughter wanted to move back into a generational home. (Not all landlords are dead beats this one was great, it even said that in there, they even set the expectations this was going to happen eventually).
The home/rental shortages is something the government created by not investing in low income/public housing, high immigration targets, policy, etc, , in this case the judge should have given the tenants the maximum amount of time to find a new place which is 12 months.
The ideal situation here is to flip the "status" of a property back to personal use. (Can't change it back to "income" use for X amount of time, say 2 years without incurring large financial impacts in fines).
It would be interesting to know why the daughter couldn't just move to 8B Owen drive. I assume that because of the turnover there, the landlord stood to make more money off continuing to rent out that side of the property than the $800/mo they were making off 8A, so they wanted to get rid of the less profitable side of the house.
It sounds shady on the LL's part.
The tenancy board needs to be notified.
File with them and once they give you a judgement, then you can go to small claims for anything they can’t enforce.
Quick question…: what happens if the landlord did actually have a family member move in, then the said family member moved out/passed away etc, what happens to the unit? Can they list it out again?
It's hard for landlords to sell a property right now and the laws that protect their financial assets are greater than the laws that protect Tenant's.
Breaking a tenancy law is not criminal unless it results in death... You can get fined but you won't go to jail. You won't get a criminal record.
Here's where we are at right now.
If a home sells for $400,000 you have to increase the rent to pay the mortgage and property tax. You need to be charging around 3000 rent just to break even. But you need vacant possession to be able to increase the rent....
This is putting landlords and aspiring landlords in a tough situation. Homeowners have the right to sell.
I am sick of hearing people complain about landlords. Blame the government for allowing in too many immigrants who drove housing prices up. Landlords are largely average families who made smart investment decisions and put their ass on the line.
Did you get your LL to file to the director to evict you on the basis of “good faith” that he was moving in?
Sounds as though, you might have just taken his word and moved on?
Complicating things, there’s no established timeline for how long the LL needs to move in for.
I don’t think you’ll have grounds to pursue this, but, INAL so reach out to the resources others suggested.
As many have said there is a prescribed way to do this and sending an email isn’t cutting it. The form they need to send give is DR2. It asks the name of the person that will occupy the unit in the case of a family member moving in.
Given to the former tenant for what, nothing? This kind of take is why people don't take renters issues seriously. Absolutely delusional solution. Owning is expensive as hell and most people who rent don't understand the true cost to maintain homes as they are fully shielded from those costs.
Equity is nice when it is up but it can and has gone down before - look at NS 6 years ago. Defaults are up and climbing currently, things are on the upswing in a lot of areas but there are absolutely parts where there's cracks in the financial foundation.
Unpopular take but landlording is a business. I'm not saying what the landlord did is a a great thing when housing is challenging to find but I honestly think the fact that life can change after initial plans are signed off and it should require justification and clear proof it was the initial plan.
The framework around a lot of the landlord tenant board encourages things like stalking behaviours following dissolution of agreements between a client and a business. That's absolutely bonkers and even more so is people who encourage it.
I've seen people who sever rental agreements through all of the appropriate channels have a tenant drive by and sit in their car nearby for a year watching the old place for people who have moved in and reach out to neighbors to ask them to report their own observations. It's super creepy and there's minimal recourse on the other end outside of engaging with a civil suit.
Track down proof without lingering around the property or engaging with someone who does not know you at all who could potentially be staying at the unit. I would be very spooked if my landlords old tenant found me to ask questions about where I live
My old landlord did the same thing except put it up for sale and said family was moving in. I had lived there for 6 years and moved out two years ago. The house is still vacant and is up for sale, then not for sale, then up for sale etc. That felt like it was mine and my daughter’s home and I miss it like crazy. I don’t understand why he’s just letting it sit vacant when he could be making money off me. And now I don’t have a place to live and am currently staying with my cousin 2 hours away from HRM until I can find an apt to rent. It sucks.
He’s right.
Tenant should have forced landlord to file for an eviction.
If he got that eviction, on the ‘good faith’ of moving in and then didn’t. He’d have some legal
footing to pursue it.
There is nothing in the RTA that allows a former tenant to seek damages for a bad-faith lease termination.
There are plenty of similar stories throughout this sub, where the former tenant finds out the "family member" never moved in and a few months later the unit is for rent again at a significant increase.
It's an unfortunate case of "shit happens" and you just have to move on.
I don't think a precedent has been set yet, but I would pursue it in small claims court if you have evidence as well as clearly documented damages up to $25k. It will consume some of your time and you need to get your shit together to ensure you appear in the best light possible. Edit: this assumes your landlord followed the RTA procedure for evicting you because a family member was moving in. Otherwise you're SOL.
Contact your city counsellor and MPP. This needs legislative change to deal with.
MLA here in NS, and they should also contact Residential Tenancies, because this is already illegal.
When this happened to me the RTB told me they only deal with "current tennancies". Once you move out you have to take them to small claims for any recourse. It is a complicated process, costs money, and has little chance of sucess. Please fix this broken system. We are suffering and you people don't even know what the real problems are.
Yeah it's definitely an "also" thing. Call your MLA to demand change. Call Residential Tenancies to make sure they know about it too.
No "also" about it the RTB will do absolutely nothing. They won't even record the fact that you called. And even if they did rule in your favor they have no enforcement. Tennants rights are purely theoretical at this point and all politicians want to do is protect landlords investments. If they can't manage risk without throwing their tennants under the bus then they deserve to lose their shirts. Maybe if more of them did they'd stop hoarding homes and treating people like peasants.
Yeah, I'm on your side here. But the RTB does have certain powers and them repeatedly hearing these kinds of issues puts more pressure on them to push for changes from government. The powers and efficacy of the RTB needs to be improved, but they are part of the puzzle.
What I'm telling you is that in the situation described they are powerless. And in most situations where they order money be paid, they have no enforcement. If you want your money you have to go to small claims. The RTB is toothless. The govt needs to step up but they won't because they want to protect their friends who own property.
Agree that they are useless for both tenants and landlords. My wife rented her house and tenant did 30000 in damage. Residential board gave her 300. She almost went bankrupt because of this. They are worse than useless.
That's funny because I have heard absolute first hand horror stories from landlords who are merrly trying to supplement their meagre incomes dealing with tenants who refuse to pay rent, have insane parties, use all kinds of drugs, and trash their propery. This narrative that you and others are trying to push about the tenants not having rights is, at best a gross exaggeration, and at worst, an egregious lack of intellectual honesty. That said, I truly hope that the OP is able to get some compensation.
Lol the mla’s are all landlords even the one overseeing housing. The current party in power is never changing the status quo when it comes to renting. Why would they when they are this far ahead in the polls.
> We are suffering and you people don't even know what the real problems are. Who are you talking to?
Well yes, but with no real consequences.
Needs To be like BC. Tenant’s wrongfully evicted in this way get the value of 12 months rent from the landlord.
Ontario is the only province with MPP's
I'm from NB. I'm used to MLAs, but i keep forgetting it's the same here. My brain just goes different province, therefore different terms.
I'm originally from Ontario and even though I have not lived there for 24 years I still can't break the habit of calling them MPPs for every province.
Do you also call every liquor store an LCBO?
"LiCBO"
Ontario 🤝 Nova Scotia Calling it the LC
ACORN and Dalhousie legal aid can help
I don’t actually find acorn helpful
While they are good resources, I don’t believe they’d be much help in this particular situation. Although unethical, there’s technically no legal wrongdoings.
Pretty sure it's illegal to evict someone on a renewing lease to raise the rent. There only 3 reasons a landlord can evict when the tenants have done nothing wrong. Selling, major renovations, or moving family in.
In the particular situation, there was no illegal eviction.
How?
You said it yourself, a landlord may end a tenancy if family is moving in.
It is also likely an illegal unit for short term rentals as it’s a secondary suite and is only allowed for 28+ day stays if it’s not their primary residence. Where it is a separate unit it wouldn’t be considered their primary residence.
It's landlords like this that erode the trust and cause stupid rule changes like this - https://www.canlii.org/en/ns/nssm/doc/2024/2024nssm33/2024nssm33.html This caused quite a stir in the rental community which I understand. On another thread, Someone was moving back to their home for school had all the proof enrolled etc and were declined, now instead of moving back into their home that they are responsible and well within the law to do, they have to rent somewhere else, farther away, etc.
Fascinating. So if a thing would cause another to be homeless, it is illegal to do? Like the bank charging me a mortgage? Or the gov. charging me taxes?
Wow - I read the whole link and really disagree with the verdict (surprised that Im on team landlords!) How long does an appointment last? Can the daughter request to use the house for personal use in 12 months? Because if I’m the Simmons family, I’m never giving cheap rent away again - it’ll just screw you over.
That could be used in any argument, ohh you can't afford to pay rent " the equities are in favour of maintaining the status quo and not disrupting the Respondents’ living arrangements." Oh you are destructive and causing damage .. " the equities are in favour of maintaining the status quo and not disrupting the Respondents’ living arrangements."GB I'm not sure where in the law this is from?
I’m not sure I understand your reply…
I think they're saying that: someone was told they legally need to move out, and then that person said no it's too expensive, and the law said oh OK then, you don't have to."
I basically took what the judge said or his justification on why they could stay.
Right okay. Which in my previous comment I agreed with the idea that that’s fucked.
Yeah sorry, I took the quote from the judge justification in the case on why they could stay.
Neither dumb nor a rule change
It's setting a precedent... It's killing small/temp landlord share which is going to create a bigger monopoly in this segment, which is bad. It's targeted at smaller property owners who maybe temporary renting due to life changes or longer term goals. 100% there are landlords that abuse this rule, but if you read the case above, the relationship was good, they charged a low amount, etc. the daughter wanted to move back into a generational home. (Not all landlords are dead beats this one was great, it even said that in there, they even set the expectations this was going to happen eventually). The home/rental shortages is something the government created by not investing in low income/public housing, high immigration targets, policy, etc, , in this case the judge should have given the tenants the maximum amount of time to find a new place which is 12 months. The ideal situation here is to flip the "status" of a property back to personal use. (Can't change it back to "income" use for X amount of time, say 2 years without incurring large financial impacts in fines).
It would be interesting to know why the daughter couldn't just move to 8B Owen drive. I assume that because of the turnover there, the landlord stood to make more money off continuing to rent out that side of the property than the $800/mo they were making off 8A, so they wanted to get rid of the less profitable side of the house. It sounds shady on the LL's part.
So many Simmon(d)s in that case!
Call 311 and report it. Like someone else said, unless he's renting for more than 28 days then it might be an illegal STR.
The tenancy board needs to be notified. File with them and once they give you a judgement, then you can go to small claims for anything they can’t enforce.
RTB won't help here.
I get it and what a joke they are
rent it for a short term... then never leave
Quick question…: what happens if the landlord did actually have a family member move in, then the said family member moved out/passed away etc, what happens to the unit? Can they list it out again?
name and shame!
It's hard for landlords to sell a property right now and the laws that protect their financial assets are greater than the laws that protect Tenant's. Breaking a tenancy law is not criminal unless it results in death... You can get fined but you won't go to jail. You won't get a criminal record. Here's where we are at right now. If a home sells for $400,000 you have to increase the rent to pay the mortgage and property tax. You need to be charging around 3000 rent just to break even. But you need vacant possession to be able to increase the rent.... This is putting landlords and aspiring landlords in a tough situation. Homeowners have the right to sell. I am sick of hearing people complain about landlords. Blame the government for allowing in too many immigrants who drove housing prices up. Landlords are largely average families who made smart investment decisions and put their ass on the line.
Did you get your LL to file to the director to evict you on the basis of “good faith” that he was moving in? Sounds as though, you might have just taken his word and moved on? Complicating things, there’s no established timeline for how long the LL needs to move in for. I don’t think you’ll have grounds to pursue this, but, INAL so reach out to the resources others suggested.
As many have said there is a prescribed way to do this and sending an email isn’t cutting it. The form they need to send give is DR2. It asks the name of the person that will occupy the unit in the case of a family member moving in.
If there was no eviction, and you simply left voluntarily, you have zero recourse through ANY avenue.
When landlords do things like this, their property should be taken from them and given to their former tenants. Fuck em
🤦🏿♂️
Given to the former tenant for what, nothing? This kind of take is why people don't take renters issues seriously. Absolutely delusional solution. Owning is expensive as hell and most people who rent don't understand the true cost to maintain homes as they are fully shielded from those costs. Equity is nice when it is up but it can and has gone down before - look at NS 6 years ago. Defaults are up and climbing currently, things are on the upswing in a lot of areas but there are absolutely parts where there's cracks in the financial foundation. Unpopular take but landlording is a business. I'm not saying what the landlord did is a a great thing when housing is challenging to find but I honestly think the fact that life can change after initial plans are signed off and it should require justification and clear proof it was the initial plan. The framework around a lot of the landlord tenant board encourages things like stalking behaviours following dissolution of agreements between a client and a business. That's absolutely bonkers and even more so is people who encourage it. I've seen people who sever rental agreements through all of the appropriate channels have a tenant drive by and sit in their car nearby for a year watching the old place for people who have moved in and reach out to neighbors to ask them to report their own observations. It's super creepy and there's minimal recourse on the other end outside of engaging with a civil suit. Track down proof without lingering around the property or engaging with someone who does not know you at all who could potentially be staying at the unit. I would be very spooked if my landlords old tenant found me to ask questions about where I live
My old landlord did the same thing except put it up for sale and said family was moving in. I had lived there for 6 years and moved out two years ago. The house is still vacant and is up for sale, then not for sale, then up for sale etc. That felt like it was mine and my daughter’s home and I miss it like crazy. I don’t understand why he’s just letting it sit vacant when he could be making money off me. And now I don’t have a place to live and am currently staying with my cousin 2 hours away from HRM until I can find an apt to rent. It sucks.
While unethical, there's nothing illegal about what your LL did and you unfortunately have no recourse.
Cite sources/authority to support this please? Not challenging you, genuinely curious
He’s right. Tenant should have forced landlord to file for an eviction. If he got that eviction, on the ‘good faith’ of moving in and then didn’t. He’d have some legal footing to pursue it.
There is nothing in the RTA that allows a former tenant to seek damages for a bad-faith lease termination. There are plenty of similar stories throughout this sub, where the former tenant finds out the "family member" never moved in and a few months later the unit is for rent again at a significant increase. It's an unfortunate case of "shit happens" and you just have to move on.
Are you a lawyer?