91 residents of N.S. mobile home park file for return of 'unlawful' water charges

A group of legal workers and tenants carried a cardboard banker's box into a Service Nova Scotia office in Halifax on Wednesday, full of filings from 91 people who are all seeking the same result. 

The mobile home tenants say they've been unlawfully paying their landlord for water and water meters, and they want their money returned.

For years, some people who own mobile homes and rent lots in Woodbine Mobile Home Park in Beaver Bank, N.S., have been required by their landlord to maintain water meters on their homes and pay water bills for Halifax Water service, while other residents haven't.

Those who have been paying say this isn't right. 

"You can't have these different classes of people, people who pay for water, people who never paid for water, people who bought but because their home had a meter, now they pay for water," said Woodbine Park resident Eloise Graves. "It needs to be equal."

For more than a year, Graves fought to get her money back, and finally received a ruling in her favour in September, after being represented by a Nova Scotia Legal Aid lawyer in small claims court. 

Mark Culligan, a community legal worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid Service in Halifax, said Graves's case has paved the way for other mobile home tenants to come forward with the same problem, which is why 91 tenants applied for a residential tenancy hearing on Wednesday. 

"It's unlawful to charge for water in addition to the rent for people in land lease communities," Culligan told reporters. "For many people, this isn't just about the money. This is about being wronged."

Half of Woodbine tenants paying for water

Culligan said out of more than 600 residents at Woodbine Park, around 300 are now paying for water. He said this issue has been ongoing since 2015, when the landlord, Westphal Court Ltd., started requiring water meters to be installed on any mobile home that was being sold. 

When Graves and others bought their mobile homes and moved in, they were required to sign agreements to allow separate water metering. They were invoiced by the landlord quarterly for water charges. 

The mobile home park is considered one customer by Halifax Water, and the landlord was then divvying up the charges to tenants, using the meters on their homes. 

Culligan said water was meant to be included in people's lot rental fees, which are covered under a provincial rent cap for mobile home park, so this "duplicated the rent that they were being charged."

Westphal Court Ltd. also owns five other land lease communities — Alderwood Village, Century Park, Sackville Estates, Westphal Court and Springfield Estates — amounting to almost 1,600 homes.

A lawyer for Westphal Court Ltd. declined a CBC News interview request relating to Wednesday's mass filing. 

"Westphal Court has not received any such filings and is not prepared to comment on this matter at this time and in advance of any hearing relating to same," Dylan MacDonald wrote in an email. 

Culligan said Westphal Court Ltd. is now appealing the original small claims court decision that awarded money to Graves and another tenant. But the tenants that applied Wednesday are hoping the decision will stand and they'll have similar results. 

Thousands awarded to the tenants

In 2023, Graves and Nicole Herd filed with the province's Residential Tenancies Program for return of their water payments, citing a policy introduced that year that explicitly states it is not reasonable to force a tenant to install a water meter.

Graves had also read in the Residential Tenancies Act that utilities should be included in rent in land lease communities, and that rules must apply in a "fair manner to all tenants." 

Graves and Herd were unsuccessful, the tenancy officers stating the 2023 policy could not be applied to years past when they paid for water. But the two appealed the decision to the small claims court, this time with legal representation.

In September, adjudicator Dale Darling ruled that the use of a metered payment system that required some tenants to install and pay for a meter is not permitted.

Darling awarded $1,769 to Graves and $2,511 to Herd to repay them for meter and water fees they've paid over the years.

Darling also ruled "the landlord is ordered to remove the water meters and any associated equipment from the homes of Ms. Herd and Ms. Graves, and to make any necessary repairs necessitated by the removal of this equipment."

Graves said it feels amazing to be awarded money, but it's not just about the financial side of things. 

"Nicole and I were really committed when we started this, that this was never going to be just about us," Graves said. "We wanted it to be about everyone in the park and the other parks in the province too, because that's important. Fairness is important to us."