For Marsh, Mager, Reid and other long-time Leucadians, moving not only means financial hardship and immense stress for tenants, but the practice also fundamentally changes the city`s unique makeup and character. In Encinitas, layoffs have risen dramatically since the state`s moratorium ended in October, local real estate lawyers and tenants told The Coast News. On November 25, 2020, pursuant to a declared state of emergency and pursuant to section 14 of the Emergency Management Act, S.N.S. 1990, c. 8¹ (“direction”), the Minister issued an instruction to include “implementations” (defined as “a renovation of residential buildings by a landlord or a building with residential premises”), when the tenant must leave the premises”) (“Prohibition of renoviction”). The instruction provided that the prohibition of renovation up to the shortest 1. February 2022 or for the duration of the provincial state of emergency. This page contains information for tenants about their rights and how they can defend themselves against dismissals, rent increases (AGI) and evictions from the landlord for their own use. It also includes examples of Toronto tenants who have organized to fight evictions and AGIs.
It took Vancouver`s Lorna Allen nearly a year to successfully fight a realignment in 2018. She denied this through the provincial Leasing Branch (RTB), which ruled in her favour because she had proved that she did not have to leave her home to carry out the planned renovations. But a few weeks later, she received another notice of dismissal, which was eventually revoked by the owner. In a phone interview, she told VICE that she still hasn`t “fully recovered emotionally.” New Westminster is a Vancouver-area city that passed a bylaw in 2019 to combat renditions, which the CBC calls a “crisis.” A “retrofit” is a special type of error-free evacuation that is done to repair or renovate a housing unit. Under state law, terminations are legal as long as the apartment owner undertakes a “substantial” renovation that requires the tenant to vacate the premises (tenants usually receive 60 days` notice to allow renovations). Vera`s best advice to a tenant trying to fight a renovation in court? Good luck. “The goal of renovations is for landlords to relocate existing tenants under the guise of renovating or repairing a rental unit or building so that the landlord can raise rents and maximize profits,” says ACORN, a tenant advocacy group. Large cities such as Toronto and Vancouver rely heavily on the private market to provide mid-level housing, and the phenomenon of “renovichness” has led to a decline in the number of affordable housing units on the market.
Compare this statutory rent increase of “20.5% to 35.9%” with the 1.2% approved by the Ontario government for rent-controlled housing, as reported by Global News. Since the new regulation applies to both new and renovated units, landlords have a financial incentive to renovate existing properties, and it all starts with Form N13 if there are rent-controlled tenants. The door is wide open for “renovations” and we need to close it In comments to The Coast News, several Encinitas property managers said that far from being an operating tactic, renovations are simply a perfectly legal way for homeowners to make necessary repairs to their homes while keeping rents at the level of rising property values. Landlords sometimes initiate a termination by giving tenants a termination in the form of an N13 termination. Often, landlords simply tell tenants that they need to move for renovations. According to Webber, a date excerpt in a deportation letter is not enough. “Most of the time, the landlord relies on the tenant to voluntarily move long before there is a legal obligation for the tenant to move,” he said. All that pressure convinced Kanagathurai to find something between his legal teams outside of a courtroom.
Terms such as “renovictions” and “vacancy control” have become part of local political discourse across the country, as rising property prices have created an incentive to take advantage of changing market conditions. For example, rents in Ontario are rising year-over-year at their fastest pace since the late 1980s, according to Statistics Canada data. Rents rose 5.4% year-on-year in June, slowing from 5.6% in May, but the largest increase since autumn 1989. Johnson suggested that many landlords making renovations could also try to make up for financial losses suffered during the COVID-19 pandemic, when property managers across the state were often unable to collect rents or evict tenants due to state restrictions. Kanagathurai is currently involved in a lawsuit filed by other tenants in the area threatened with eviction, including Goldfeder, who still lives in the building. Pending renovations for the remaining third unit included sealing an entrance, building a balcony and building a closet. The legal review applied by the Landlord and Tenant Board adjudicator is found in subsection 50(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, S.O. 2006, chapter 17, which reads as follows: The term renovictiveness implies that the renovations were used as an excuse to evict a tenant without informing them of an option to return after the renovations were completed. Neighbors Brandon Kennedy, Phil MacInnis and Kelly Goldfeder successfully fought against two translations.
Photo courtesy of Parkdale Organize. Leaders in Canada`s largest city face the challenge of dealing with an increase in “renovations,” a phenomenon that has already led to tensions between landlords, tenants and politicians in other major municipalities such as Vancouver and Montreal. Legal protection for tenants in California has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic as landlords have had to provide more substantial reasons for no-fault eviction on their part than in the past, Vera said.