Last spring, Caio De Naday Hornhardt believed his former landlord had done him wrong, with a same-day eviction.
He spent weeks trying to figure out how to have fines imposed on the landlord under the Residential Tenancies Act — a story he shared at the time.
De Naday Hornhardt found that while the written law was clear, the enforcement of it was not.
A year ago, provincial government officials acknowledged there was a gap in the system, and pledged to take action.
But they still haven’t finalized that work, leaving De Naday Hornhardt waiting and wondering.
“It feels awful — it feels, I don’t know what’s happening,” he said.
“Of course, I’m not inside the government, so I don’t know all the details why it’s taking so long.”
And he’s not the only one seeking to find out more.
“I’ve been trying to get updates from the government over the past six months or so,” said Sherwin Flight, administrator of a Facebook group for landlords and tenants in the province with about 29,000 members.
“And the answers are just vague answers — you know, that things are coming soon, things are in the works, in the coming weeks, those kinds of answers.”
In a statement, the Department of Digital Government and Service NL said they’re working on a pilot project to help address some of the concerns people have raised.
Legislation changed in 2018
The Liberal government brought in a new Residential Tenancies Act in 2018, and highlighted an initiative aimed at curtailing violations.
“The new legislation will see (an) increase in penalties from a maximum of $400 to a maximum of $10,000 for corporations and $3,000 for individuals,” then-minister Sherry Gambin-Walsh told reporters at the time.
“It is our hope that the increase will encourage compliance with the act.”
But no one was actually put in charge of getting those cases to court, where fines could be levied.
In late 2023, a CBC News investigation found no evidence that any landlord or tenant had ever been fined for breaking the rules.
At the time, then-Digital Government and Service NL Minster Sarah Stoodley defended the status quo, saying “not having ever administered the fine doesn’t defeat the purpose of having the law.”
Housing advocate Sherwin Flight says the Residential Tenancies Act needs more bite. Service N.L. Minister Sarah Stoodley says it’s up to individuals to seek fines against a tenant or landlord who broke the law.
But weeks later, there was a change of heart — and a pledge to address the problem.
“I can commit that our department now will be taking a lead where warranted on the process to go through in terms of resulting in a fine under Section 51 of the Residential Tenancies Act,” Stoodley told VOCM on Jan. 12, 2024.
“We do accept now that this has been a gap and we are going to be taking on that role.”
In April, Stoodley told a legislative committee that the department is “going to start seeking legal action against landlords and tenants, potentially,” adding that a hiring process was underway to help make that happen.
But advocates have questions about what has happened since — and the pace of transforming promises into policies.
“I would like to see them do what they promised a year ago and get those changes made and get this into action so that landlords and tenants aren’t having to suffer,” Flight said.
The lack of an effective mechanism to enforce the law has people like De Naday Hornhardt worried there is no deterrent to bad behaviour.
“People are doing wrong things, and people will continue to be doing wrong things if they know they’re not going to be punished,” he said.
Pilot project in progress
Digital Government and Service NL Minister Elvis Loveless was not made available for an interview.
In an email to CBC News, his department says it “remains committed” to reviewing the powers of inspectors within the context of the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), in relation to the dispute resolution process.
One year after the government promised change, housing advocates say they’re running out of patience waiting for better enforcement of the residential tenancies rules. The CBC’s Rob Antle reports.
“Work has begun on a pilot project which has a primary objective of addressing issues of compliance with the RTA that are not effectively addressed through the current dispute resolution process,” department spokeswoman Gina MacArthur wrote.
That work includes the recent hiring of a residential tenancies officer who will “assess the need for a specific process related to Section 51 of the Act and identify contraventions for which prosecution may be contemplated.”
According to the department, the pilot project will explore ways to increase compliance without the need to resort to court action.
“The goal remains to achieve voluntary compliance, where possible, with a focus on education and awareness of the roles and responsibilities of landlords and tenants,” MacArthur noted.
The department says that pilot project is expected to be fully implemented “in the near future.”
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