Last spring, Caio De Naday Hornhardt believed his former landlord had done him wrong and evicted him the same day.
He spent weeks trying to figure out how to impose fines on the landlord under the Residential Tenancies Act, a story he shared at the time.
De Naday Hornhardt concluded that while the written law was clear, its application was not.
A year ago, provincial government officials recognized there was a gap in the system and pledged to take action.
But they haven’t finished that work yet, leaving De Naday Hornhardt waiting and wondering.
“It feels horrible, it feels, I don’t know what’s going on,” he said.
“Of course, I’m not inside the government, so I don’t know all the details of why it’s taking so long.”
And he is not the only one seeking to know more.
“I’ve been trying to get updates from the government for the last six months,” said Sherwin Flight, administrator of a Facebook group for landlords and renters in the province with about 29,000 members.
“And the answers are just vague answers: you know, that things are coming soon, that things are in the works, in the next few weeks, those kinds of answers.”
In a statement, the NL Department of Government and Digital Services said they are working on a pilot project to help address some of the concerns people have raised.
The legislation changed in 2018.
The Liberal government enacted a new Residential Tenancies Act in 2018 and highlighted an initiative aimed at reducing 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.
“We are hopeful that the increase will encourage compliance with the law.”
But no one really took it upon themselves to take these cases to court, where fines could be imposed.
As of late 2023, a CBC News investigation found no evidence that any landlord or tenant had ever been fined for violating the rules.
At the time, then-Dutch Digital Government and Services Minister Sarah Stoodley defended the status quo, saying that “never having administered the fine does not defeat the purpose of having the law.”
Housing advocate Sherwin Flight says the Residential Tenancies Act needs more teeth. National Services Minister Sarah Stoodley says it is 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 promise to address the problem.
“I can commit that our department will now take the lead where warranted in the process to follow in terms of resulting in a fine under Section 51 of the Residential Tenancies Act,” Stoodley told VOCM on January 12, 2024.
“We now accept that this has been a gap and we are going to take on that role.”
In April, Stoodley told a legislative committee that the department is “going to start pursuing legal action against landlords and tenants, potentially,” and added that a contracting process was underway to help make that happen.
But advocates have questions about what has happened since then and the pace of transformation of promises into policies.
“I would like to see them do what they promised a year ago and make those changes and put this into action so that landlords and tenants don’t have to suffer,” Flight said.
The lack of an effective enforcement mechanism has people like De Naday Hornhardt worried that there is no deterrent to bad behavior.
“People are doing bad things and will continue to do so if they know they are not going to be punished,” he said.
Pilot project underway
Dutch Government and Digital Services Minister Elvis Loveless was not available for an interview.
In an email to CBC News, his department says it “remains committed” to reviewing the powers of inspectors in the context of the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), in relation to the dispute resolution process.
A year after the government promised changes, housing advocates say they are running out of patience waiting for better enforcement of residential rental rules. CBC’s Rob Antle reports.
“Work has begun on a pilot project that is primarily intended to address RTA compliance issues that are not effectively addressed through the current dispute resolution process,” department spokesperson Gina MacArthur wrote.
That work includes the recent recruitment of a residential tenancies officer who will “assess the need for a specific process relating 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 said.
The department says the pilot project is expected to be fully implemented “in the near future.”
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