A New Brunswick tenant says he’s being pushed out of his rented bungalow as retribution for complaining about his landlord, but his landlord says she’s the victim of an unfair tenancy tribunal ruling that is preventing her from using the unit to house family.
Jonathan King and his landlord, Ashmin Goolab, have been embroiled in a bitter year-long dispute involving a notice of a 65 per cent rent increase, a failed eviction attempt, and claims that the unit is needed to house Goolab’s mother-in-law.
King, who lives in Chipman, said Goolab is trying to force him and his wife out of their affordably priced bungalow in an effort to circumvent New Brunswick’s rent cap, and as retribution for a complaint he made about being given improper notice to alter their lease.
Goolab said she and her family are the victims of the tribunal ruling, as well as unlucky timing in their plans to relocate with her husband and mother-in-law from Ontario to the property they bought in 2024.
“I don’t know what to do anymore,” Goolab said. “I just, I’m so lost. I’m so frustrated.”
New owner, big rent increase
King said he’s lived in the two-bedroom home since August 2020 after moving from the United States to live with his wife, who’d already been living in the rental for five years.
He said the bungalow, as well as three other buildings comprising seven units, were sold in August 2024.
That same month, King said he received a letter giving 60 days notice that the lease was being altered to exclude electricity costs.
Then days later, on Sept. 1, 2024, he and his neighbours received notice of rent increases, with his set to go up the following March to $1,200 a month from $727.
“We were shocked and it definitely has put some strain on us and has been an emotional roller-coaster ever since,” said King, who also volunteers with ACORN New Brunswick, a social and economic justice group.
King said he appealed both of notices with the Tenant and Landlord Relations Office.
On Nov. 22, he said someone from the office contacted him to confirm his landlord was supposed to have have given 90 days notice for altering the lease agreement, making the notice invalid.
Then unexpectedly, three days later, King said, he received a letter from his landlord’s property manager, notifying him the lease was being terminated as of March 1, 2025.
In the notice, the reason given was that the landlord or their immediate family intended to live in the premises — one of the four reasons a landlord is allowed to give when terminating a lease.
The notice surprised him, he said, given the tenants in the bungalow next to his were also being asked to move out, which they did end up doing in November. King said he also later learned that a second unit in another building on the property was vacant.
King again challenged that notice with the Tenant and Landlord Relations Office, arguing it was in retaliation against his earlier complaints.
In January, the office confirmed the rent increase notice was invalid thanks to a three per cent rent cap enacted by the province in November, which was retroactive to September.
And in February, the office also shot down the notice of lease termination, finding it appeared to be issued in retribution.
“Although the Landlord has submitted evidence/arguments to support their position, I am not satisfied that the Notice was not served out of retaliation,” residential tenancies officer Justine Northrup wrote in her decision issued Feb. 5.
King said he considered the ruling a victory, because he was able to stay in the unit and only being subject to a rent increase of $21.81.
But the feud with his landlord isn’t over, he said.
In September, efforts to terminate King’s lease restarted, with Goolab’s property manager issuing two notices — one giving 59 days notice, and another giving 105 days notice.
Again, King complained to the tenant office and again it struck those down, saying a termination notice couldn’t be issued within a year of a tenant filing a complaint against their landlord.
Then on Dec. 1, just days after that one-year window elapsed, King said he got a fourth termination notice, requiring that he and his wife move out by Feb. 28, 2026.
“I still believe it’s, it’s retaliatory and almost feels like harassment considering the pattern that we’ve seen from them serving improper notices,” he said.
King said he’s contested that latest notice as well.
Victim of unlucky timing, says landlord
When Goolab and her husband, Adam Jeffreys, went property hunting in New Brunswick, they wanted something specific.
Goolab said her father-in-law died in December 2023, leaving her mother-in-law alone in an assisted living complex about an hour’s drive from the home they own and live in near Barrie, Ont.
They’d already purchased a detached home in Chipman in 2022, and were looking at the area once again for a property they could live on and that also had space for her mother-in-law and additional income units to supplement their retirement.
She said they landed on a four-building property on Spring Street, which they purchased for $295,000.
It includes two bungalows, a duplex and a triplex at the end of a cul-de-sac.
Goolab said the plan was for her and her husband to live in one of the bungalows and for her mother-in-law to live in the other.
“I honestly feel like I’m on the verge of having a mental breakdown from all the things [Jonathan] is doing to us, and where we haven’t done anything,” Goolab said.
“All we’ve done is serve an eviction notice because we want to use our property for our own personal use — for [my] mother-in-law and for ourselves and that’s our legal right.”
Asked about the two vacant units, Goolab said the bungalow that was vacated last year is where she and her husband were supposed to live, but it was severely damaged by the previous tenants and needs extensive repairs.
The other unit, in the triplex, is where she and her husband stay when they visit to work on the damaged bungalow and manage other property issues.
As for why she issued a rent increase if the plan was to evict King and his wife, Goolab said rents for the other tenants were being raised in September, and she considered it fair to include his unit because it was unclear when she and her family would move to New Brunswick.
With New Brunswick’s rent cap preventing her from raising the rents more, she and her husband are “bleeding money left, right and centre” and feel stuck in a tough situation, she said.
“We did our absolute best to provide what is fair to all of our tenants with staying with market rents for those properties,” she said.
“But also considering the fact that … this property was not just handed to us for free. This property was not given to us for the price that the previous owner paid for it.”
Tenant points to loophole in rent cap
King said he’s sympathetic with Goolab for the death of her father-in-law, but he’s still skeptical of her story.
He said his experience highlights how landlords can potentially circumvent the rent cap, as it doesn’t apply when there’s turnover in a unit.
Making things worse, the Tenant and Landlord Relations Office has no process to be automatically flagged when a landlord issues a notice — regardless if whether it’s legal — putting the onus on tenants to file a complaint.
“So while the three per cent cap is a good start, it doesn’t take into consideration these loopholes and that’s something we’re hoping to fix at ACORN,” King said.
