Recap: Meeting with Jennifer Howard

Several tenants were able to attend a meeting wit our MLA, Jennifer Howard, this past Monday evening.

The meeting was more in regards to policies and legislation and examining the process of appeal for tenants in general.

Ms. Howard was gracious with her time, and listened to each of us in attendance, but was clear that she was not really able to provide the resources and information for our immediate situation - the appeal process.

Still, some very important information was shared between tenants in attendance and also with our MLA.

On the topic of tenants’ rights and the appeal process:

• We discussed the difficulties and how little influence a tenant has during the appeal process.
  
  
• the issue of how tenants are allowed to access information – timelines for accessing documents being short and difficult, the inability to copy the documents to bring to outside assistance (lawyers, forensic accountants), and the timeline to appeal.
  
  
• the lack of access to resources and advocacy support that would allow tenants to approach the parties at a hearing with a solid case and appropriate arguments.
  
  
• we needed to understand what constituted “regular maintenance” and what could be claimed as “major repairs” to identify what exactly the landlord was attempt to recover costs for.
  

On the topic of policy and regulation:

• Ms. Howard spoke about the history behind the Residential Tenancies act, rent regulation and how they came about in response to inflation.
  
  
• These regulations were put in place to discourage landlords from dropping buildings and property that they felt were too expensive to maintain or keep. By allowing the application for increase above a guideline, they could find a way to recover costs in fixing up & keeping building in decent repair. This is meant to balance landlords costs to keep their buildings in good repair and reasonable rents for tenants.
  
  
• A residential advisory board made up of appointed representatives (landlords & tenants) is set to oversee and approve changes to these regulations...
  
  
• A regular avg increase in rent (below the guideline) usually does not cover larger repairs. 65% of tenants pay the avg guideline, 35% pay the increase.
  
  
• Affordability is another issue altogether from this.
  

Addressing these issues, investigating the “Advisory Board” and writing our thoughts and experiences with the process and sending them to Ms. Howard is something that several of the tenants are interested in pursuing in the long term.

In regards to our appeal, this is still something we are looking for help in building a united “case” for the hearing.
This is something most of us wish to address as it’s pending and time is of the essence.

The key thing is to appeal first.