N.S. renoviction ban likely ending with COVID-19 restrictions next month

With Nova Scotia's ban on so-called renovictions likely coming to an end next month, the minister responsible for the Residential Tenancies Act offered reassurance Thursday that protections are in place for renters going forward.

Colton LeBlanc, the province's minister of Service Nova Scotia and Internal Service, said changes made last October will offer more protections to tenants against renovictions — a situation where a landlord forces residents to leave a building so it can be renovated and rents then substantially increased.

"There is a legislative process in place that provides compensation to tenants that are being evicted, as well for tenants in circumstances where their landlord violates the process," LeBlanc said.

The changes to the Residential Tenancies Act include giving tenants at least three months notice before a renoviction. If a tenant does not agree to leave, the landlord must make an application for an eviction order. Landlords will also be required to give the tenant between one and three months rent depending on the building size.

Nova Scotia's ban on renovictions has been in place since November 2020, but is expected to end when the province lifts its COVID-19 restrictions on March 21. The government has repeatedly said the ban would last only as long as the state of emergency in the province.

Some renos require evictions, says minister

LeBlanc told reporters there are "intended purposes" of renovictions, but he believes any renovation that requires an eviction would have to be major.

"All infrastructure has a lifespan. All infrastructure, including housing throughout its lifetime, requires ongoing maintenance and repairs, and some of those repairs are quite significant and require a tenant to be evicted," he said.

"We're not talking about, you know, renovation to replace a window or a bathtub."

But Nova Scotia NDP Leader Gary Burrill said renovictions aren't occurring solely for maintenance purposes.

"Renovictions happen because landlords wish to get rid of tenants so they can charge more to the next tenant. People need to be protected from this," he said.

When the renoviction ban was extended in January, Burrill said it was "very welcome news for an awful lot of people."

He said he's concerned about the ban ending, especially in Halifax where there's a vacancy rate of one per cent. That figure comes from a report released last week by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corp.

Burrill said he would like to see the ban remain in place until the vacancy rate improves.