Press Hits

Non-sufficient fund (NSF) fees are about to drop for Canadians.

Starting March 12, banks will have a $10 cap on NSF fees they can charge when there isn’t enough money in a bank account to cover a withdrawal. The $10 cap doesn’t apply to corporate or business accounts.

NSF fees typically range from $45 to $48, and usually occur when a cheque or pre-authorized debit can’t be covered and the consumer doesn’t have overdraft protection.

A New Brunswick tenant is calling for tighter rules around the use of fixed-term tenancy leases after her former landlord appeared willing to use hers to circumvent the province’s limit on annual rent increases.

“Anyone who has signed a lease, pull out your lease and check,” Jessicarose DuPerron said.

“Make sure you know if you have a fixed-term [lease] because the end date on that fixed-term lease is the date by which you would either need to be moved out, or sign a new lease which could come with a significant rent increase.”

Recent announcements from the Ontario government around tuition and the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) mean post-secondary students will have to pay more for their education.

When you add a significant rent increase, some students are being forced to make very difficult decisions.

The University of Waterloo is planning to increase the rent for students living in the Columbia Lake Village (CLV) residence.

Now, some of those students are organizing to fight the rent increase they say is unfair and disproportionate.

A pair of city councillors kept staff on the hot seat, challenging a report’s recommendation to take “no further action” on several proposals meant to make some problematic landlords more accountable to their neighbours.

On Tuesday, the Community and Protective Services (CAPS) Committee was deadlocked over next steps, after staff advised them not to amend the Residential Rental Unit Licensing (RRUL) by-law to require that landlords display their name, a contact telephone number, and the maximum number of occupants permitted to reside within a rental unit.

Council requested the report last summer after several members expressed frustration at absentee landlords whose properties are routinely the subject of neighbourhood complaints about noise and property standards.

A delegate from London ACORN, an advocacy group for tenants, urged the committee to implement the changes.

Those who rely on social assistance to get by in Hamilton are increasingly ending up homeless as rents outstrip their meagre incomes, says a new paper calling for reform.

Provincewide, more than 30,000 Ontario Works (OW) and Ontario Disability Support Program (ODSP) recipients were homeless this past July, a 72 per cent jump from six years earlier, found Maytree, a Toronto-based human rights organization.

In Hamilton, the number of OW and ODSP beneficiaries who were homeless rose to 1,597 beneficiaries from 662 over the same span — a roughly 140 per cent increase.

Data shows the cost of rent in New Brunswick has grown at a slower rate than in several previous years, coinciding with slowing population growth, increased housing supply and legislation capping rent increases at three per cent.

“We’re starting to see rent growth in New Brunswick moderating. It’s coming down,” said Kelvin Ndoro, an economist with the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation.

The rise in rent observed in New Brunswick last fall was the most modest it’s been in three years, according to findings by the CMHC in its annual rental market survey done last October.