Krista Stevenson is a teacher.
Her sister, Melody McInnis, is a property manager.
The women, along with their husbands, are also landlords. They supplement their incomes by separately owning and maintaining a small number of apartment units, less than 13 each, in Summerside and Charlottetown.
When a unit needs maintenance, they said they do it themselves. When something needs fixing, they said they get it done. They said they try to do right by their tenants and they have been happy to put in the extra time and money being small business owners.
But both are now deeply concerned about their ability to stay in the residential real estate market, given the proposed changes in P.E.I.’s new Residential Tenancy Act.
The province announced the new piece of legislation at the end of February. If passed into law it would replace the current 30-year-old Rental of Residential Properties Act.
Both women agree the old act needed to be updated, but they also have a few significant concerns about some of the proposed changes and some of what is not being considered to change.
The situation could have been avoided if rental unit owners had been properly consulted before the draft legislation was released, said the sisters.
“We think this is an awesome thing. We’re all about it being updated because there are a lot of issues (the old act) doesn’t include. It’s a great thing to update the document, that’s not our concern,” said Stevenson.
“It’s just the lack of involvement of property owners and other stakeholders and the extremely short timeline.”
“No property owners we’ve spoken to had any input into the changes at all,” added McInnis.
The new act was supposed to go from being released to the public in its draft form to having all chances to provide feedback done within about a month. The women argue that this was not enough time to properly review the document, seek legal advice on how it will impact their responsibilities as landlords and then articulate an informed response to the province.
The sisters are also concerned about the vague wording of the new act when it comes to a landlord’s rights in terms of emergency evictions. These would be cases where tenants have become destructive to the property, are conducting illegal activity in the unit or are otherwise a danger to the renters around them.
“There is no way to get a tenant, who may be dangerous to other tenants, or causing damage or doing illegal activity, out quick enough. It takes a while,” said McInnis.
“Having an emergency eviction (clause) is one of the main concerns of property owners we’ve spoken to.”
One landlord, who did not want to give their name, spoke with the Journal Pioneer on this issue described a situation where two young men renting an apartment were served an eviction notice for growing unlawful cannabis in the unit (prior to legalization) and ended up doing more than $10,000 in damages before they could legally be removed from the property.
Another sore point for the sisters is a hold-over from the old act into the new one.
If a renter abandons a property and leaves their belongings behind, then the landlord is required to store all of those items for at least a month.
This happens more than you might think, said McInnis, and depending on how much stuff was left behind, it can put a significant financial burden on a property owner, especially someone who only has a few units.
“This has not changed at all from the old act to the new act, and in our opinion, if property owners had been involved in the process than this (would have been addressed,)” she said.
These are just two examples of several concerns the sisters raised and which they said are shared by any number of other property owners they’ve spoken with.
In terms of having a chance to have input into the proposed changes, the public had until March 31 to submit its feedback in writing and four in-person sessions had been held/planned to do the same. The first two meetings took place in Alberton on March 9 and Summerside on March 11, but the final two meetings set for Charlottetown and Montague have been postponed indefinitely due to the ongoing efforts to combat the coronavirus (COVID-19 strain) pandemic. The deadline for written submissions has also been extended. The Journal Pioneer's interview with McInnis and Stevenson took place before the pandemic.
McInnis and Stevenson are hoping the province will take the concerns of landlords seriously before the new act is passed into law. Doing so would result in a better system for everyone, they said.
“We just feel that the act needs to be equally representing renters and property owners in order to be a better functioning document for everybody involved,” said McInnis.
“Right now, we just don’t feel that is the case.”
For more information about or to provide feedback on the proposed tenancy act, visit the provincial Department of Education website.
A turbulent meeting
Landlords and stakeholders did not hold back at the second of four public meetings to provide input on P.E.I.'s new Residential Tenancy Act.
The meeting was in Summerside on March 11 and was attended by about 50 people, many of them landlords looking for answers.
The consultant that had been retained by the province to facilitate the meeting, Christina MacLeod with Volume 18, asked participants to put stickers on placards placed around the room.
Where a person placed their sticker would indicate if they agreed or disagreed with the statement on the paper, which were sections taken from the new act. That activity was supposed to be followed up by small group discussions about specific topics related to the new act. That feedback would go back to the province to help inform the process and could result in changes to the act before it got to the legislature.
However, many of those in attendance refused, at least at first, to participate and instead demanded answers about any number of topics, the most prominent of which was why none of them had been consulted before the new act was written.
Kathy and Bill McInnis, long-time Island property developers and owners, attended and expressed their frustration with the process. They had arranged for a group of landlords, who did not feel comfortable speaking out publicly, to meet privately with those directing the process on March 12 to discuss their concerns, only to be told on March 11 that the meeting was canceled and if they had feedback they wanted to give, it would have to be at the public meeting or via the written channels.
Many property owners feel vilified by the narrative surrounding the province’s housing crisis and don’t feel comfortable asking questions or raising concerns publicly, said Kathy. So to have that private stakeholder meeting canceled was disappointing and frustrating.
Andy Black owns nine residential units in Summerside and he too attended the public meeting in the hopes of finding more information.
Black said he was concerned that if the new tenancy act puts up too many roadblocks for landlords it is going to exacerbate the housing crisis.
“There is just too many and a growing number of disincentives to invest (in real estate) on P.E.I., causing a shortage of housing,” he said.
He would rather see a free market, with some protections guaranteed for the most vulnerable, allowed in order to increase housing stock.
If an investor cannot be assured a reasonable return on their investment, they are going to put their money elsewhere, Black added, and that does not get homes built for Islanders.
