Margaret Anne McHugh thought she was lucky finding a $1,600 a month apartment in Halifax.
However, it’s on a fixed-term lease, meaning both the start and end dates are set out in the tenancy agreement. Unlike periodic leases such as month-to-month or year-to-year, fixed-term leases are not automatically renewed.
She and others who live in her building worry they may be forced out at the end of their terms.
“We are living in fear,” she said. “Seniors who’ve worked all our days and living not in poor quality apartment buildings, nevertheless can be thrown out and put into a situation where we cannot afford our rentals because we’re on fixed incomes.”
McHugh was among a small group protesting in downtown Halifax on Thursday, a few blocks from the Nova Scotia legislature.
The group Atlantic ACORN is calling for the province to ban landlords from only offering fixed-term leases to tenants.
“The practice has become commonplace in the province since the temporary rent cap was passed because it allows landlords to end leases and circumvent the rent cap. It leaves tenants with very little rights,” ACORN said in a release.
ACORN goes on to say that it has found “at the end of the term, landlords do not offer lease renewals, instead increasing rental rates for the new tenants.”
Service Nova Scotia Minister Colton LeBlanc said the change is not something government is considering.
“We’re continually monitoring the program and committed to modernizing and strengthening the program, but eliminating the program is not on the table,” he said. “We look at those changes through the lens of a balance — both tenants and landlord. We look at the lens of short-term solutions, medium, and long-term solutions.”
NDP Leader Claudia Chender calls it a failure of the system.
“We need comprehensive rent control like one we see in many other jurisdictions across the country, and this is why we need to build affordable housing,” she said. “All of this is because of a lack of supply.”
Last month, a group representing landlords in Nova Scotia says the province’s already-strained rental supply will decrease further if fixed-term leases are restricted or eliminated.
The Investment Property Owners Association of Nova Scotia (IPOANS) released survey results of what members would do if the province moved to restrict or eliminate fixed-term leases.
Of the respondents, 78.5 per cent said they would stop renting to tenants at high risk of rent default if fixed-term leases were restricted or abolished.
Kevin Russell, executive director of IPOANS, said they ran the survey in response to a number of media reports in recent months “demonizing” the use of fixed-term leases.
— with a file from Global News’ Alex Cooke and Skye Bryden-Blom