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Tenant Stacey Gomez fights landlord on eviction from her apartment due to mould

A woman standing in front of two microphones. She is speaking in to the microphone. Next to her is a man in a suit, her lawyer seen smiling to the press. This press release session took place in one of the meeting rooms at his firm.
Stacey Gomez has been in a months-long dispute with her landlord, and is fighting to keep her long time home despite being asked to leave due of mould. Photo by Sara Gouda.
Sara Gouda - CKDU - Halifax • NS | 02-11-2022
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Stacey Gomez has been fighting to return to her home of five years.

On Thursday, tenant Gomez held a press conference with her lawyer Mitch Broughton and Lisa Lachance (MLA Halifax Citadel-Sable Island) at the office of CIR Law Inc in Halifax. They spoke against the move by landlord Marcus Ranjbar to immediately terminate Gomez’s tenancy, which they say doesn’t follow the rules.

On Tuesday Oct. 25, Gomez was served with a Form F Notice to Quit - Additional Circumstances by the landlord. Gomez says the landlord is claiming that this terminates Gomez’s tenancy immediately, and that he will remove her remaining personal property if she did not do so by Friday, Oct. 28.

This follows an “Order to vacate unsafe property” issued to the landlord by Halifax Regional Municipality (HRM) officials for his Church Street building, which reads 'the Property is deemed to be unsafe due to excessive mold in the air posing a health risk to residents occupying the space."

CKDU reached out to landlord Marcus Ranjbar through email, and he said that this is not a renoviction issue as Gomez claims.

"This is not a renoviction issue, its by-law and HRM compliance issue rendering the unit unsafe to live in.  We tried to work with Ms. Gomez to prevent this but she has been very difficult during the whole process," said Marcus Ranjbar.

Ranjbar said the deadline to start remediation provided by HRM is Nov. 4th or he will receive levy fines of $237.50 per day.

Gomez complied with the HRM order, and left her home temporarily. She said that for close to a year, the landlord remained silent about a possible mould issue and failed to take actions to fix or control the problem.

“Imagine leaving your home temporarily, for example, going on a vacation and your landlord unilaterally deciding to lock you out, permanently, from where you have lived for years. I left temporarily while mould abatement occurs, but now the landlord is saying that my tenancy is over, permanently. So far, municipal officials haven’t given an indication of how long the repairs will take. It could be days, or if could be more. At this point, we simply don’t know,” said Gomez.

Gomez said she was open to collaborating with the landlord to address this matter, such as moving her items to another space in the apartment while renovations for mould took place, but that option has not been raised.

Her lawyer Mitch Broughton said a landlord cannot unilaterally terminate a tenancy, and that a tenancy can only be terminated through the residential tenancies board with a termination order.

"Ms. Gomez is of the position that her landlord could have addressed the issues outlined in their own reports, and they could have followed the HRM order to remedy the mold issue, and the water ingress, without evicting her. They chose not to do so,” said Broughton.

According to Nova Scotia's government website, a seven-day notice is required by law, should a landlord want a tenant removed for any reason other than failure to pay rent and breach of statutory conditions.

“The government needs to act now. We hear a lot about balancing the rights and responsibilities of Tenants and landlords and  What we really want to see in the act and in the enforcement is respect for what people are going through with their homes and the places they live and to see that in fact the system can work to protect people in these situations,” said MLA Lisa Lechance.

During the conference, Gomez called on MLA Colton LeBlanc, Nova Scotia's minister responsible for the Residential Tenancies Act, to ensure that landlord Ranjbar follows the rules.

"Tenancy rights are provincial, not municipal. Landlords must go through the proper channels with the province, including a Residential Tenancies hearing and the granting of an eviction order before they can evict someone legally. I have spoken to the Residential Tenancies Program and they confirmed that there aren’t exceptions to these rules. Currently, my tenancy rights are being violated. I’ve been locked out of my home by the landlord, without an eviction order,” said Gomez.

Since the press conference, Gomez said she has been staying at lodging acquired by the province for a duration of two weeks.

On Friday Oct. 28, Gomez said she spoke with an official from the mayor’s office who said she still has her tenancy rights.

On Sunday Oct. 30, Gomez said Ranjbar removed her possessions from the unit, without her authorization.

Ranjbar shared this statement with CKDU through email.

"As a responsible landlord, the unwillingness of a tenant to cooperate with an HRM compliance order should not deter us from the responsibility to make our buildings safe and livable spaces. My legal counsel and I have been in touch with the tenancy board frequently throughout the whole process to make sure everything is done right, and we will further continue to heed the advice of environmental experts, HRM safety inspectors, and the tenancy board in this matter," said Ranjbar.
Ranjbar added that the situation is unfortunate.
"The building being condemned was the exact thing we were trying to avoid from the beginning by offering Ms. Gomez six months' rent, $500 moving costs, a damage deposit and three months' time to leave. Our offers were seven times above and beyond what is required of us by the legislature, but it was rejected by Ms. Gomez for peculiar reasons," said Ranjbar.

Listen to the full interview below:

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