New Brunswick considers making landlords apply for certain rent increases

New Brunswick's housing minister says the province may introduce legislation next spring that would force landlords to apply for permission to increase rents above a certain threshold.

Jill Green says the government hasn't decided yet what that threshold would be, but it could be a fixed percentage.

Landlords wanting increases above that amount would have to apply to the Residential Tenancies Tribunal for approval, Green told Radio-Canada in an interview.

"There's a number of different ways it can be done, and there's a number of different jurisdictions that require landlords to file rent increases," she said.

"So we're considering how other jurisdictions are doing it and what's reasonable in the New Brunswick environment."

Increases this year capped at 3.8%

Last week Green confirmed the government's one-year cap on rent increases won't be extended into 2023.

That cap, at 3.8 per cent, was introduced after a wave of high-profile examples of tenants hit with double-digit increases as high as 55 per cent.

A Statistics Canada report released in April 2021 found that rent increases in New Brunswick were the largest in Canada from March 2020 to March 2021. 

Instead of extending the cap, Green introduced legislation this fall that would allow the tribunal to spread an increase greater than the inflation rate over two or three years — but only if a tenant complains to the body.

That still puts the burden on tenants to act, and on Wednesday opposition MLAs, including Liberal Benoit Bourque, called for shifting the onus from tenants to landlords by requiring them to justify increases.

Green Party pushed for same change

Bourque called his suggestion "an olive branch" to Green. 

The Green Party proposed such a change in the last session of the legislature, introducing an amendment to that effect that the Progressive Conservative majority voted down.

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The minister said work on the new legislation is "currently happening" at her department but more has to be done before it can be introduced.

"There's a number of things you'd have to consider. … We really have to have a solid process around what that would look like and what would be required and what's doable." 

Increases have to be 'reasonable'

That's why the change wouldn't be incorporated into her bill currently before the legislature. That bill is expected to be approved before the house adjourns Dec. 16.

Green also said the change would have to be workable for the tribunal.

The current legislation says if someone complains to the tribunal about an increase in rent, the landlord has to prove that either the new rent is "reasonable" compared to other units in the same geographical area, or that all units in the building are getting the same increase.