Landlord asked Halifax tenant for illegal deposit, denied apartment when she refused

哈利法克斯妇女说，她拒绝向她的潜在房东支付非法押金后，被剥夺了公寓。

柯斯滕·帕内尔（Kirsten Parnell）has been looking for a place since she moved back to Halifax more than a month ago. She thought she’d lucked out two weeks ago with an apartment at Wedgewood Court, off Kearney Lake Road near Highway 102. WM Fares is the landlord.

21岁的帕内尔（Parnell）需要一名委托人申请并进行申请，但房东还要求她在她的损失押金之前先支付第一和上个月的租金。

The Wedgewood Court apartment complex, where Parnell was looking to rent. — nexthome.ca

That’s illegal under Nova Scotia’sResidential Tenancies Act：

任何房东不得从租户作为保证金要求，收取或接收其他金额或其他价值，该金额超过每月或将要求为住宅房屋支付的租金的一半。

Parnell didn’t originally know that, but asked around about whether it was legal.

“And close to 90% of the people I asked said that it was legal and that they could ask for whatever they wanted,” she told the Halifax Examiner.

“I definitely don’t think people are aware of this.”

一个朋友告诉她这是违法的,然后Parnell found the language in the Residential Tenancies Act.

柯斯滕·帕内尔（Kirsten Parnell）。照片：贡献

当她去签署租约时，帕内尔告诉房东的代表，要求上个月的租金是非法的。

“After I talked to her about it, she was in contact with the landlord of that building, and basically said, ‘Yeah, he still wants last month’s rent,'” Parnell said.

“我几乎被告知要么非法向他们支付资金，要么我被拒绝了公寓。”

Parnell is now back looking for an apartment, but with Halifax’s low vacancy rate, it’s tough to find one.

“I have family members I’m staying with now but if I didn’t have that option, I don’t know where I would be,” she said.

Part of her wishes she’d just paid the illegal deposit.

“然后，我至少可以向租赁委员会提出投诉，并有可能取回上个月的租金。但是现在，我无法提出投诉，也没有居住地。”帕内尔说。

马克·库利根（Mark Culligan），，，，a community legal worker with Dalhousie Legal Aid, said when a tenant hasn’t actually paid the illegal deposit, like in Parnell’s case, they have no recourse.

“There’s no punishment that will will happen to the landlord,” Culligan said.

It’s something Dalhousie Legal Aid has been asking the provincial government to fix by creating an enforcement division within Residential Tenancies to fine landlords under the Act.

库利根说：“我们现在将其提交给部长，后来的部长，并被告知这不是他们真正感兴趣的东西。”

There is a process in place to fine landlords now, where the Residential Tenancies Board recommends Crown attorneys lay a charge, but as far as Dalhousie Legal Aid can tell from its research, that’s only happened once in 30 years.

同时，这种做法在总体上仍然很普遍。

库利根说：“我认为此案特别严重，因为它是一个大房东，是房东，涉及的金额是一个挑剔的房东。”

WM Fares副总裁Maurice Fares表示，这只是一个误解。

Fares说：“这实际上根本不是我们的政策，显然这是双方之间可能沟通的。”

票价没有拒绝没有信誉或不良信用的租户，而是说该公司会要求“额外的安全”。

“This is kind of a solution that we came up with to try to help people into apartments versus ultimately rejecting the application,” Fares said.

“显然，在当今的市场中，公寓的需求非常高，这确实是为了帮助新朋友到这座城市，新人到该国，这就是我们如何看待它的。”

When the Examiner suggested that’s still illegal, Fares said it’s not a deposit.

“We never looked at it as, ‘Hey, we’re breaking the law, illegal,’ nothing. We just said, ‘Hey, what’s the solution?’ Like, ‘Look, how can we accept tenants in today’s market?'” Fares said.

“人们对此非常感激和感谢。”