RESIDENTIAL TENANCIES

Information for Landlords

In the province of Newfoundland and Labrador, the Residential Tenancies Act, 2000 (RTA) governs the relationship between residential landlords and tenants. The Act sets out the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants. It regulates matters such as rent increases, ending a tenancy, settling disputes, as well as addressing many other issues.

The Residential Tenancies division of the provincial government’s Service NL is responsible for mediating and adjudicating disputes between residential landlords and tenants. The Residential Tenancies has a website containing extensive information for landlords and tenants. You can ask questions relating to your specific situation by dialing 1-877-829-2608 (toll-free from all areas of Newfoundland and Labrador).

Please note that this is general information only and not a complete statement of the law.

Are you a landlord under the RTA?

The RTA applies to most rental housing in Newfoundland and Labrador, however, some types of living arrangements are not covered by the RTA.

Some examples of living arrangements that are not covered include:

Accommodations providing meals and bed linens;
Where the owner shares bathroom and kitchen facilities with an occupant (i.e. a boarding house);
Accommodations provided by an educational institution to its students
(e.g. residence at MUN);
Accommodations provided by a religious, charitable or non-profit organization;
Accommodations in a hospital or nursing home;
Hotels, motels, inns, hostels, etc.

The above list is not exhaustive. Refer to section 3 of the RTA for more complete information about what accommodations are included and excluded, found on the landlord and tenant section of the Service NL website.

Inspection

Before a landlord hands over possession of a rental unit to a prospective tenant, an inspection should be done.

The premises should be vacant during an incoming inspection, and the landlord and potential tenant should inspect the premises together. A Rental Premises Condition Report form is available on the “Before Renting” section of the Residential Tenancies website.

Write down any damages such as holes, scratches and burns. The landlord and tenant should then sign and keep a copy of the inspection report. It is recommended that both parties take photos (date stamped) prior to the beginning of the tenancy and again once the tenancy has ended. When the rental term is finished, you and the tenant should do an outgoing inspection as well.

Rental Agreement

Your rental agreement forms the basis of the contractual relationship between you and the tenant. Whether it is oral or written, the agreement is a legally binding contract between both parties.

You need to know what you are agreeing to. The RTA regulates this contractual relationship.

The rental agreement (or “lease”) sets out:

What the tenant agrees to pay;
The length of the rental term;
The premises the landlord agrees to provide;
Other conditions that must be followed.

There are various types of rental agreements, including;

Week to Week
Month to Month
Fixed Term – a fixed term lease will be no less than 6 months and no more than 12 months.

Statutory Obligations

Each rental agreement, whether oral or written, is presumed to contain certain basic rights and responsibilities under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2018. These conditions are called statutory conditions and must be followed – even if the lease says otherwise. A condition in the rental agreement that is contrary to any of these statutory conditions has no legal effect.

Below is a list of the statutory conditions as found verbatim in section 10 of the RTA:

Obligation of the Landlord

The Landlord shall maintain the premises in a good state of repair and fit for habitation during the tenancy and shall comply with a law respecting health, safety or housing.
Paragraph (a) applies regardless of whether, when the landlord and tenant entered into the rental agreement, the tenant had knowledge of a state of non-repair, unfitness for habitation or contravention of a law respecting health, safety or housing in the premises.

Subletting Premises

The tenant may assign, sublet or otherwise part with possession of the premises subject to the consent of the landlord, and the landlord shall not arbitrarily or unreasonably withhold consent and shall not levy a charge in excess of expenses actually incurred by the landlord in relation to giving consent.

Mitigation on Abandonment

Where the tenant abandons the premises, the landlord shall mitigate damages that may be caused by the abandonment to the extent that a party to a contract is required by law to mitigate damages.

Entry of Premises

Except in the case of an emergency, the landlord shall not enter the premises without the consent of the tenant unless:

Notice of termination of the rental agreement has been given and the entry is at a reasonable time for the purpose of exhibiting the premises to a prospective tenant or purchaser and a reasonable effort has been made to give the tenant at least 4 hours notice;
The entry is made at a reasonable time and written notice of the time of the entry has been given to the tenant at least 24 hours in advance of the entry; or
The tenant has abandoned the premises under section 27.

Entry Doors

Except by mutual consent, neither the landlord nor the tenant shall, during the use or occupancy of the premises by the tenant, alter a lock or locking system on a door that gives entry to the premises.

Peaceful Enjoyment

The tenant shall not unreasonably interfere with the rights of a landlord or other tenants in the premises, a common area or the property of which they form a part.
The landlord shall not unreasonably interfere with the tenant’s peaceful enjoyment of the premises, a common area or the property of which they form a part.

Disconnection of Services

A landlord or tenant shall not, without the written consent of the other party to the rental agreement, disconnect or cause to be disconnected heat, water or electric power services being provided to the premises.
Where a landlord and tenant enter into a written rental agreement, the conditions set out in subsection (1) shall be reproduced in the agreement without variation or modification.

Security Deposit

A security deposit, sometimes called a damage deposit, is a sum of money the landlord requires the tenant to pay at the beginning of a rental agreement, in addition to the rent paid.

The amount depends on the type of rental agreement. The following guidelines are used to determine the security deposit amount for different rental agreements:

Week to week rentals – up to 2 weeks rent
Month to Month rentals – up to 3/4 of a months rent
Fixed Term (6-12 months) – up to 3/4 of a months rent

The landlord must provide the tenant with a written receipt for the security deposit, and put the deposit in an interest-bearing trust account, reserved only for security deposits.

The landlord does not own the security deposit. Unless the landlord has a claim for some or all of the security deposit, they must return it to the tenant, with the interest it gathered, within 15 days of the tenant leaving the premises. If the landlord has a claim for some or all of the security deposit, the landlord and tenant will create a written agreement on how the security deposit will be distributed, or else the landlord or tenant may apply to the Director of Residential Tenancies to determine how it will be distributed. The landlord and/or tenant can apply to Residential Tenancies for a hearing on the issue.

Discrimination

Housing discrimination can be a significant problem in a competitive market. However the Newfoundland and Labrador Human Rights Act, 2010 outlines the grounds on which discrimination is prohibited.

The Human Rights Act is legislation that protects individuals against discrimination based on certain personal characteristics. These personal characteristics are sometimes referred to as ’grounds’. The Act’s provisions apply to government, private business and individuals.

Prohibited grounds are:

Ethnicity
Nationality
Ethnic Origin
Social Origin
Religion
Religious Creed
Age

Disability
Gender or Gender identity
Sexual Orientation
Marital Status
Family Status
Source of Income
Political Opinion

Please note that this list is not exhausted and may be updated.

The Act prohibits discrimination when granting occupancy of a self-contained dwelling unit (for example, refusing to rent an apartment to an individual because of their family status). Whether a situation amounts to discrimination depends on the specific circumstances of the case. There are exemptions when discrimination is permitted under the Act. For example, a limitation, specification, exclusion, denial, or preference because of a disability can be allowed when it is determined to be based on a good faith qualification by the commission.

The Act also allows landlords to use income information, credit checks, credit references, rental history, guarantees or other similar business practices in selecting prospective occupants. In the case of self-contained dwelling units reserved for those 55 and older, offering or advertising is allowed where every unit is occupied by at least one person who has reached the age of 55 or older.

Responsibilities of a Landlord

The landlord and tenant have a number of obligations, some of which we will highlight below. The information below comes from the Residential Tenancies website and is only a partial list. For more detailed information, visit the landlord & tenant section of the Service NL website.

A landlord must:

Provide the tenant with a written notice of the landlord’s name, telephone number and address where documents may be served and, if the landlord has an agent responsible for the residential premises, they must provide that person’s name, telephone number and address. The landlord must immediately notify the tenant in writing of any change in this information during the tenancy;
Investigate complaints from the tenants of disturbances or repairs as soon as possible and try to resolve the problem;
Not change or alter the lock or locking system during the tenancy without providing the tenant with a copy of the new key;
Make repairs and keep the rental unit in good condition;
Provide and maintain sufficient doors and locks to make a unit reasonably secure, and
Never enter the rental unit without proper notice of entry, unless it is an emergency

Subletting

A tenant may sublet the premises. This is contingent on the consent of the landlord, but a landlord may not arbitrarily withhold consent to sublet.

Rental Increase

As a landlord, you cannot increase the rent during a fixed term lease.

For week to week or month to month tenancies, a landlord cannot increase rent during the first 12 months of the rental agreement or more than once in a 12 month period after that.

Tenants must be notified of a rental increase in writing no less than eight weeks before the change in week to week rentals, and no less than six months before the change in month to month rentals.

Discontinuing a service, privilege, accommodation or thing could be considered a rent increase. For example, if the rental cost normally included utilities, and then a tenant was required to ‘POU’ (pay own utilities), this could be considered a rent increase.

Where the landlord and tenant agree in writing, the landlord may increase the rent when the increase is due to the provision of a service, facility, privilege, or thing.

Record of Payments

A landlord needs to keep an up-to-date record of all money received from the tenant because the Director of Residential Tenancies can visit a landlord and demand production of correspondence and records at any time.

Termination Notices

A notice of termination is a written document that one party uses to inform the other that they must or are about to vacate the premises.

Unless the landlord and tenant agree in writing upon a longer period of notice, the tenant must normally give the following notice if terminating the rental agreement:

Termination Without Reason

If the residential premises is a site for a mobile home – landlord must give at least six months’ notice before the end of the rental period
Fixed-term – the landlord must give at least three months’ notice before the end of the fixed term;
Month to month – the landlord must give at least three months’ notice before the end of the rental period;
Week to week – the landlord must give at least four weeks’ notice before the end of the rental period.

Failure to Pay Rent

Where a fixed-term or monthly tenancy exists:

the landlord may give a tenant a termination notice that takes effect 10 days or more after the day the notice is served (when the rent is in arrears for 15 days).
- For example, rent due on June 1st, if not paid by midnight on June 15th, the landlord can issue a notice on June 16th for termination on June 26th.

Where a weekly tenancy exists:

the landlord may give a tenant a termination notice effective not less than three days after the notice is served (when the rent is in arrears for at least three days).

Where the tenant pays the full amount of rent in arrears, plus a late fee if applied, before the date specified in the notice, the notice is void and cannot be carried out. However, this rule does not apply where notice is given to a tenant more than twice within a period of 12 months.

Termination where uninhabitable

When a tenant makes a premise unfit for habitation, the landlord can give the tenant notice that the rental agreement is terminated and that the tenant is required to leave immediately. Tenants cannot withhold rent, even if the landlord is not properly maintaining the premises. The tenant should contact the landlord in writing outlining the work that is required, and if the requested work is not completed in a “reasonable amount of time” they can contact Residential Tenancies for assistance. The tenant would then be entitled to give notice of termination if the situation is not remedied or request a hearing.

Termination for Interference with Peaceful Enjoyment

If a tenant interferes with the peaceful enjoyment of a landlord or other tenants, the landlord may give termination notice in writing to take effect not less than five days following the date on which notice was given.

Termination in Exceptional Circumstances

A tenant may give one month’s written notice, accompanied by evidence in certain circumstances. These include ill health of the tenant, the tenant’s income is reduced, ill health of a person who has been providing financial assistance towards the payment of tenant’s rent, ill health of a family member when tenant is required to take up residence with that family member, tenant admitted to a nursing home, or tenant dies.

Eviction

If the tenant doesn’t move out following valid notice, then the landlord can commence eviction proceedings. This requires making an application to the Director of Residential Tenancies. For more information about the eviction process and application cost, contact Residential Tenancies.

Notice

Notice must be served on the other party before various things can proceed. Notice may be served in the following ways:

giving it personally to the person;
giving it to someone 16 years of age or older who apparently lives with the person;
placing it in the mailbox or under a door of the person’s premises;
sending it to the person by registered mail, express post, prepaid to a location where the rent is payable or the landlord/tenant carries on business;
sending it by courier; or
any other method authorized by the Director

Where either the landlord or tenant is a company, the notice may be given personally to a company Director, manager or officer as follows:

by leaving it at the company office
by sending it to the company by registered mail, express post, prepaid or courier, or another method authorized by the Director

Abandonment of Premises or Property

Where a tenant has abandoned the premises, the landlord can take possession.

Where a landlord intends to take possession of an abandoned premises, they must post notice 24 hours in advance of their intention to do so.

Abandoned Personal Property

Where a tenant abandons the property, the landlord must hold it in storage for 60 days and provide an inventory to the Director and to the tenant, if possible. A tenant wishing to retrieve the property has to pay the landlord’s storage fees to regain possession. Where the property has no monetary value, is unsanitary or unsafe, or is not worth the price of storage or sale, then the Director can authorize the disposal of the property.

Where a tenant does not take back their property, the property can be sold with the proceeds going to the costs incurred by the landlord, and compensation to the landlord, as dictated by the Director. The rest of the money must go to the Director with a written statement of account regarding the sale and distribution of the proceeds. The Director must hold these funds in trust for the tenant, but if they are not collected in a year, they go into the consolidated revenue fund.