New Brunswick holding onto $41 million in security deposits from tenants
BNN Bloomberg
The New Brunswick government has amassed nearly $41 million in security deposits collected from residential tenants in a practice that is unique in Canada and that critics say needs to change.
The latest annual report from Service New Brunswick showed security deposits sitting at $40.9 million for the 2021-22 fiscal year, up from $36.4 million a year earlier. It is unclear from the numbers how much of the total came from people who had moved out and were entitled to get their deposits back.
Under provincial law, a landlord can require a deposit of up to one month's rent to cover possible damage caused by the tenant. Amendments introduced in 1983 dictated that the province would oversee the collected deposits.
Nichola Taylor, chair of the New Brunswick branch of housing rights group ACORN, called the province's practice of holding onto the security deposits problematic. She said the process of recovering a security deposit is overly complicated, which could explain the swelling sums in provincial coffers.
