PC MLAs vote down NDP amendments to close fixed-term lease loophole
After hearing from unhappy landlords, advocates, and tenants, government MLAs voted down amendments to their bill extending Nova Scotia’s temporary rent control.
The legislature’s Law Amendments Committee heard from 14 speakers about the Interim Residential Rental Increase Cap Act on Monday. As the Halifax Examiner reported last month, the Houston government introduced the bill to extend the cap on rent increases to the end of 2025.
The cap, currently 2%, was to expire at the end of 2023. The government said it intends to set the new annual cap at 5%. It didn’t put that figure in the legislation, opting to use the regulations to set the number later.
Unsurprisingly, landlords opposed any cap on rent increases.
But much of the talk at the committee on Monday was about what wasn’t in the bill: any movement on the issue of fixed-term leases. Landlords have been using fixed terms to skirt the rent cap, booting tenants and jacking up the price of their units for the next inhabitant above the 2% cap. …[Read More]