Halifax, NS – A Halifax resident, Stacey Gomez, is fighting to keep her apartment of close to 5 years amid an attempted renoviction and what she describes as escalating pressure tactics by the landlords.
Gomez has been a resident at the property in downtown Halifax since December 4, 2017. The property is close to Dalhousie University’s Sexton Campus, in a historic area of the city. On December 20, 2021, the building was sold to new landlord Marcus Ranjbar, whose Instagram handle is HalifaxHouseFlips. Ranjbar operates the property with Morgan Fraser.
Since purchasing the property, Gomez says that the new landlords have taken a number of actions to try to get tenants to leave, including pressuring them to sign shorter leases. On March 24th, days after the provincial renoviction ban was lifted, Fraser requested that tenants sign a DR5 Form: Agreement to Terminate for Demolition, Repairs or Renovations, stating that environmental testing conducted in the building had detected high radon levels. Fraser later revealed that they had building permits in place for renovations, which Gomez says appear to be for minor changes. Renovations began on May 31, 2022.
Gomez, who declined to change the conditions of her lease or sign the DR5 form, is one of the last remaining tenants at the property. She was recently served by the landlords with a Form J for termination of tenancy and vacant possession for renovations. The Residential Tenancy Hearing is scheduled for August 12, 2022.
“I love my home and I don’t want to leave,” stated Gomez. “Unfortunately, the owners appear to be engaging in escalating pressure tactics to try to get me to leave, including negligence of the property and inaction on my repeated requests for essential repairs. They recently ignored my multiple emails asking that they fix my toilet and Marcus even hung up on me when I called to follow-up. When I requested that they repair the damage to my patio, which I suspect the landlord is responsible for, he responded with an irate email and tried to scare me into leaving.”
In the June 23rd email, Ranjbar writes: “…it is not safe or advisable that you stay in your unit and to move out as there will be construction on site, you will have a lot of power, internet and water outages during and other safety hazard. You obviously not only ignored our multiple notices, warnings, and advisements from both me and Morgan but don’t care for your own safety and safety of our workers. Here is another disclaimer that it will not be safe for you to stay at that apartment during renovations, we don’t understand how many times we have to tell you this, and you continue to ignore it for your own selfish benefits… There’s isn’t much more I can do for you, but that whole deck is unsafe please do not use it whatsoever, and stay at this apartment at your own risk.”
Gomez is in the process of filing a Form J against the owners for repairs and other issues. She says that she is sharing her story so that other tenants will be informed about their rights. She hopes that the province puts in place better protections for tenants such as a permanent rent cap, and regulations to deter renovictions.
