Illegal evictions common practice: former tenants
SYDNEY — Michael Blake returned home from the hospital on March 25 to find his front door missing.
The screen to the inside door was also gone. Blake and his girlfriend could not lock their Rockcliff Crescent apartment and all the heat was escaping.
Blake, 32, said when he saw it, he immediately knew why it was gone. The couple was two months behind on their rent.
He was a resident of one of the 110 rental units owned by Christopher Neville, through his company, Ava K. Holdings Ltd., in Sydney. These units are along three streets: Rockcliff Crescent, Sidella Drive and MacAulays Lane.
Earlier this year, Blake communicated with one of the property managers via text message about the back rent Blake owed throughout February and March of this year. The Cape Breton Post has viewed the text message conversation.
The manager started telling Blake in a text they should move out in late February. Blake said they were issued a notice to quit (move out) dated Feb. 20. This notice indicated they must move by March 15.
According to the Residential Tenancies Act, a notice to quit is not an eviction notice and a tenant can appeal it. If they do not move in the 15 days requested in the notice to quit, a property owner must apply for a hearing with the residential tenancies board for an order to vacate as the next step.
If the tenant still has not moved, the landlord then goes back to the board to apply for an eviction hearing in small claims court, which the sheriff’s office executes instead of a property owner or their staff.
The Cape Breton Post placed four calls and a message sent via social media to Neville, but they were not returned. Two property managers who sign leases for the company declined interviews.
Service Nova Scotia would not say if any complaints were lodged against Neville.
ABOUT ILLEGAL EVICTIONS
Mark Culligan is a community legal worker at Dalhousie Legal Aid Service, who spoke to the Cape Breton Post on illegal evictions. He did not comment on specific cases.
“We run a residential tenancies information line and we get about 500 to 600 calls about illegal evictions every year. Illegal evictions are a common issue,” he said.
“(Landlords) are supposed to have a hearing, go through a legal process, give the tenant the right to defend themselves, then eventually, it’s the sheriff who enforces (the eviction), not the landlord.”
On March 18, the power to Blake’s rental unit was cut off. He reported the incident to Nova Scotia Power. The technician who responded told him electricity was going into the power meter. The switches and meter to his unit had been damaged, according to the technician.
Power was restored and a week later Blake’s front door was removed. He said he called Cape Breton Regional Police twice, who was “nice but couldn’t do anything about it,” and directed him to the Nova Scotia residential tenancies board.
“Police investigate any matters of a criminal offence; otherwise, civil matters between a tenant and landlord are to be addressed under the Residential Tenancies Act,” said Cape Breton Regional Police spokesperson Desiree Magnus. “Each individual situation may or may not indicate an infringement of the Act, as there are certain authorities lawfully granted to a landlord or tenant under that Act.”
Electricity to Blake’s unit went out again on April 1, leaving him and his girlfriend without heat or a front door. Two days later they moved in with family and are still there today. They continue to look for a suitable place to live.
Nova Scotia Power has confirmed the utility was called about both power outages.
“We can confirm we were called to the address on Rockcliff Crescent March 22, 2021, and April 1, 2021. On both occasions, technicians determined that electrical service was being delivered to the customer’s meter,” a Nova Scotia Power spokesperson said in a written statement.
Blake said they had no choice but to move in with family. And with no means to store their furniture, it was mostly left behind in the apartment.
“They left us with no power, no safety, no ability to work,” he said. “We had no choice but to get out of there. I was sleeping with a knife by my pillow.”
COMMON TACTICS?
The Post interviewed eight other former tenants of the rental units owned by Neville and his company, Ava K. Holdings Ltd. The tenants lived in apartments at the complex between 2015 and this year.
They came forward following the publication of the story in the Cape Breton Post last month about Anne Dennis and Gianni Rizzetto’s eviction involving having power cut and locks changed to their apartment at the Rockcliff complex.
While rental arrears were not the reason for Dennis and Rizzetto’s alleged harassment from the property manager, it was the case for seven of the other eight interviewed by the Post.
In all, proper lease termination processes were not followed and they weren’t happy with the actions of property management, according to those former tenants who spoke to the Post.
Shubal Simi had lived at 80 MacAulays Lane since moving to Canada from Punjab, India, in December 2017.
“The day I moved from (the apartment in October 2020) was my best day in Sydney so far,” said Simi. “The seven days before that were the worst days.”
Only able to pay $1,000 of the $1,500 rent in September because he had fewer roommates than he would normally have, the pressure to produce the money quickly escalated.
Simi claimed he was the target of racial slurs by a property manager. The manager allegedly “raised his middle finger and said things I would not want to repeat, ma’am,” Simi said.
“Before that, I had never seen the property manager,” he said, noting the kitchen exhaust in the rental unit needed repairs for years and no one ever responded to their requests to have it fixed.
Simi said power to the apartment was cut off for two days and he called regional police because he believed the property manager was responsible for shutting it off. Police directed him to the residential tenancies board.
Because his roommates are taking university courses remotely, Simi said he begged the property manager to turn the power back on. It was eventually restored.
GOVERNMENT ACTION NEEDED
Culligan, the community legal worker, said no matter what the situation, a property owner or management team has no legal right to cut off a tenant’s utilities or do things that make a unit uninhabitable to force a move by renters.
“That would be taking the law into their own hands and they don’t have the right to bypass the legal process,” he said.
Culligan said Dalhousie legal aid is advocating for a law reform change in Nova Scotia, which would increase the penalties for property owners who violate the Residential Tenancies Act.
“We’ve done research into the case law to see what kind of damages have been awarded in the past and we’ve gone back to the early (1980s),” he said. “There hasn’t been too many awards of exemplary or punitive damages in these kinds of contests. The damages have been pretty limited and it’s pretty rare.”
Legislative changes to the act should include a compliance and enforcement division for the residential tenancies program, Culligan said.
He said they also would like to see amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act to layout penalties to landlords who break the regulations.
“In our view, there is a need for the province to take a more active role in doing that investigation and penalizing landlords who do this kind of thing.”