N.S. housing crisis: How the fixed-term lease ‘loophole’ can be ‘easily abused’
Advocates are raising concerns about the use of fixed-term leases in Nova Scotia as the province continues to grapple with an ongoing housing crisis and rock-bottom vacancy rates.
Unlike periodic leases – such as month-to-month or year-to-year – fixed-term leases have fixed start and end dates, meaning they are not automatically renewed.
While fixed-term leases are useful in some situations, Mark Culligan, a community legal worker with the Dalhousie Legal Aid Service, said they can be “easily abused by bad landlords.”
“Because the landlord can simply elect not to enter into a new fixed-term lease at the end of the old one, they don’t have to explain why they don’t want to continue renting to a tenant,” Culligan said in an interview.
“Unfortunately, tenants don’t have much recourse in those situations because the landlord is under no legal obligation to enter into a new lease.” …[Read More]