The maximum interest rate that creditors can legally charge is set to drop in the new year, but consumer affairs experts and advocates are now urging Ottawa to expand the kinds of borrowing costs covered by the cap, warning the lower limit will likely spur high-cost lenders to turn to ancillary charges.
As climate change fuels hotter summers and more extreme heat events, Toronto is taking steps to protect tenants in apartments without air conditioning. The city’s planning and housing committee approved a staff report on Thursday, recommending adoption of the city’s first maximum heat bylaw, aimed at reducing health risks.
When Syed Noman Ali opened the new lease papers from his landlord in May, it was yet another rent increase, the second in as many years. In 2022, Ali had been paying $1,425 a month, plus $50 for parking, for his low-rise three-bedroom unit. When Avenue Living, the Calgary-based real estate owner and operator, took over the building that same year, it raised his base rent to $2,125. It now wanted $2,450.
The City of Ottawa’s auditor general has found that a city employee was engaged in a kickback scheme with a group of four local landlords, collecting thousands of dollars in payments in exchange for more favourable rental rates under specific housing benefit programs administered by the city.
As a tenants’ rights group warns about loopholes in New Brunswick’s proposed rent cap, the province’s housing minister has promised to address any remaining issues later on. Housing Minister David Hickey tabled rent cap legislation just two weeks into the Liberal majority government mandate. While Nichola Taylor, chair of New Brunswick’s ACORN chapter, says it’s a necessary step, she says that protection won’t work as intended without other changes to the Residential Tenancies Act.
Currently, the LTB estimates that the average application for non-payment of rent is scheduled for a hearing in roughly three months — down from an estimated 10 months in 2023. All other application types take an estimated five to seven months. CBC spoke to members of landlord associations and rental experts who confirmed the process appears to be moving faster for non-payment applications. But representatives from the Federation of Metro Tenants Associations and Toronto ACORN say tenants are currently experiencing wait times that far exceed those averages.
