For years, many people have known that landlords in Alberta can oust tenants by increasing their rent beyond what they can afford when a legal cause for eviction isn't present.It's what one master in chambers on the Court of Queen's Bench of Alberta has described as a “loop-hole” in tenant law, as there is no cap on rent increases in this province.That loophole is now closed because of a lawsuit in Olds between Milner's Aloha Mobile Home Park and park resident Brielle Jenkins, where the master declared it was not lawful for a landlord to increase rent to evict a tenant without cause.According to a memorandum of decision for the case dated April 15, the dispute started in March 2010 when the mobile home park alerted tenants their rent would be raised to $350 per month.But in Jenkins' case, she got notice that her rent was being increased to $930 monthly, effective October 2010.The park, which is the applicant in the case, claimed Jenkins owed $30,760 in unpaid rent as of September 2013, or $960 per month and applied to evict her.Jenkins had what's called an open-ended periodic tenancy.Under governing statutes, including the Mobile Homes Sites Tenancy Act and Residential Tenancies Act, a landlord's ability to end a periodic tenancy is limited, said Jonnette Watson Hamilton, a University of Calgary law professor who has blogged on the case.“The Mobile Home Sites and the Residential Tenancies Act both constrain ... the reasons the landlord can give for getting rid of a periodic tenant,” Hamilton said.Provided a tenant hasn't committed what the mobile home law calls a “substantial breach” of the agreement, such as consistently failing to pay the rent, illegal activity or not keeping the property clean, landlords can only terminate a periodic tenancy for a few reasons.Some of them include: If the landlord or a relative will be occupying the home; the owner is selling the home and the purchaser will live in it; or vacancy is required for the utilities to be installed or repaired.Master in Chambers A. R. Robertson, who presided over the case, wrote in the memo, “None of the prescribed reasons for termination are applicable.”These limitations are in place so that landlords cannot evict somebody arbitrarily, Hamilton said.“And that's what security of tenure means. If you're a good tenant and you keep your end of the bargain, you can't be gotten rid of just because the landlord doesn't like you. You've got a home,” she said. “You can get rid of a bad tenant. A tenant who doesn't pay the rent, doesn't keep the property clean, etc.”In her blog post, Hamilton wrote, “Master Robertson's decision potentially signals a significant shift in the power balance between landlords and residential tenants in Alberta.”That balance depends on the marketplace, she said, providing Calgary as an example of where property owners have the upper hand.“In Calgary, I hear the vacancy rate's about one per cent which means all the economic power is in the landlords' hands,” she said.Prior to this decision, landlords were able to use rent controls to kick an undesirable renter to the curb.“Now they can be called on it. Now tenants have something to hang their hat on when they want to fight back. So it gives tenants a little bit more power,” she said.There is also a social justice element to tenant laws, which protect renters who are less economically powerful.“Most tenants are poor. They are often seniors or they're students or they're low-income earners,” Hamilton said. “So they don't have the power in the marketplace and these statutes are consumer protection and power-balancing statutes.”While the decision in the Olds case means landlords cannot hike rent to evict people, it does not establish what kind of increase counts as a circumvention of the law.Landlords can be justified in raising the rent based on the market, Hamilton said.“Conditions can change. That's what the market is,” she said. “Landlords are the owners of the property. They have the freedom to do that under the statutes.”Hamilton pointed out how rent was doubled in many places in Calgary following last year's floods but that was a case of market fluctuation, not about evicting tenants.In this case, Hamilton said it was obvious that the park was trying to evict Jenkins."That was a pretty flagrant rental increase, right? It was so much higher and there were so many comparables,” she said. "This was a mobile home trailer park where everybody else got their rent raised by a much lesser amount. So in some ways this was an easy case. It was so extreme."Moreover, she added there was evidence of the landlord's motive.According to the memo, Jenkins' affidavit, sworn on Feb. 6, lists a number of actions by the landlord she said were intended to drive her away from the park.Some acts included cutting her water line in 2007; entering her rental site without notice or permission; and “piling snow in front of her vehicle, apparently meaning that she had to do two hours of shoveling, when pregnant, in order to move her vehicle.”The memo also states that another one of Jenkins' affidavits included a transcription of a conversation between her boyfriend Joseph Berg and Irving Milner, who is referred to as the landlord's representative.The following is an exchange quoted in the memo:“Mr. Berg: ‘You already tried to up my rent to $930 a month you're trying to take my house. You're trying to sue me for $30,000!!'“Mr. Milner: ‘Yeah well I raised the rent up to $1000 a month to get you out of here didn't I?'“Mr. Berg: ‘You tried!'“Mr. Milner: ‘Yeah I sure did! I am trying to get you out of here!'“Mr. Berg: ‘No one else pays that a month, what are you singling me out or what?'“Mr. Milner: ‘Dam rights rights [sic] I am singling you out! I want you out of here!'”Master Robertson writes that these allegations went uncontested in Milner's Feb. 24 reply affidavit.“I am left to accept that the events described occurred,” Robertson wrote.The case has been adjourned indefinitely.The Olds Albertan has been in contact with both Jenkins and Milner but Milner has requested to speak with legal counsel before commenting.The Olds Albertan will continue to follow the story in the coming [email protected]
