The existing process, she said, requires tenants to go before a residential tenancy hearing, which often results in remedies that have to be enforced through small claims courts and may ultimately require tenants to hire a sheriff. Any changes to the Act, Hussey said, should consider reforms to the residential tenancy hearing process.
Hussey issued a release on Monday saying the clinic is representing a rooming house tenant who lost the use of a communal stove for over a week. The tenant, Hussey said, should receive a portion of his rent back, adding that his case is the latest to show an enforcement and compliance unit is needed.
“You’re talking about people who don’t have the means that some of us have to make other arrangements to cook and prepare their food,” she said.Kevin Russell, director of the Investment Property Owners Association of Nova Scotia, said landlords are also in favour of an enforcement and compliance program that would help quickly resolve disputes.
“We know in a lot of instances, one of the parties don’t even know there’s a problem … and there’s a definite lack of communication at times between the landlords and tenants and sometimes vice versa,” Russell said. “We would hope a compliance and enforcement division and program would quickly resolve situations where one party or the other feels aggrieved by the actions of the other.”“Sometimes, it’s just a matter of having an officer there to mediate the situation and to advise the offside party that they are offside, and the action has to stop,” he added.