New Brunswick tenant wins eight-month fight to retrieve $850 security deposit

An $850 security deposit Jaclyn Reinhart paid back in 2018 to rent a Saint John apartment is finally being returned to her by the province but without interest and only after she spent months fighting the landlord to prove she was entitled to the money.

"It is exhausting. It was exhausting for me and I'm a fighter," Reinhart said of the effort required to reclaim her money.

"Other people I'm sure would have given up a long time ago."

Reinhart and her children moved into an east Saint John apartment in August 2018. In addition to the rent she paid to the local landlord who then owned the building, she paid an $850 security deposit that he forwarded to the province.

New Brunswick allows landlords to charge a new tenant an amount equal to one month's rent, to be held by the Tenant and Landlord Relations Office as security.

It can be paid out to the landlord if a tenant defaults on rent, causes "wilful or negligent" damage, steals from the unit or leaves a mess behind that requires cleaning by the landlord before the unit can be re-rented.

Otherwise, the deposit belongs to the tenant and is to be returned when the apartment is vacated.

'I was shaking, I was like what is this?'

In March 2022, Reinhart's original landlord sold the building to investors from Coquitlam, B.C.

In November that year, Reinhart reported to the local property manager that a small crack had appeared in the unit's bathtub. In January 2023, shortly after a contractor looked at the tub, Reinhart received notice her lease was being terminated that spring so her unit could be renovated.

In early April, Reinhart bought her own house. When she moved out of the apartment, she applied for the return of the $850 security deposit she had paid the original landlord in 2018.

She was told the new landlord, Curtis Yamada, was alleging she left thousands of dollars in damage behind and was making a claim for the security deposit himself.

"I was shaking, I was like what is this," said Reinhart.

WATCH | Renovicted tenant describes 'awful' process fighting for damage deposit:

"I followed everything I was supposed to do. I cleaned the entire apartment and even hired people. I made sure baseboards were cleaned, light fixtures, I washed the walls, everything. I feel you could have eaten off the floors.

"I was so confused, and when it sunk in and I was reading these claims that they made, it wasn't things that had to do with cleaning or normal moving out."

In his claim, Yamada submitted receipts from the renovations done to Reinhart's old unit and blamed her for what was spent. The claim included $5,200 to replace the cracked bathtub, $1,700 to paint a number of walls and $563 to repair three doors.

Reinhart began gathering information to dispute each claim.

Her original landlord submitted a letter on her behalf detailing how some of the issues the new owner wanted to bill Reinhart for existed before she had become a tenant, including problems with an exterior door.

"This door was installed before I purchased the building," Joshua Blanchard, the original landlord, wrote. "The frame was badly damaged by a previous tenant and was re-secured structurally by a door technician but not replaced. A visible crack did remain, however."

Reinhart lived in the bottom half of this east Saint John apartment building for nearly five years. Her original landlord helped her dispute a new landlord's claims that she caused damage in the unit. (Robert Jones/CBC)

Blanchard also said he had not painted the apartment before Reinhart had moved in back in 201, and there were "scuffs, nail/tack holes etc." that pre-dated her tenancy.

In October, six months after Reinhart had originally asked for her security deposit back, the Tenant and Landlord Relations Office scheduled a hearing by telephone conference to adjudicate the dispute. Reinhart was present, but the landlord "failed to appear," according to the official account of the hearing.

Two months later, in mid-December, Reinhart was notified each claim made by the landlord had been rejected.

No evidence had been submitted that Reinhart was responsible for any wilful or negligent damage to the apartment according to the final report of the investigating officer, Erin Doucette.

"In view of the foregoing, I dismiss the landlord's claims," Doucette wrote in the decision.

"I hereby authorize the security deposit in the amount of $850 to be returned to the tenant."

Tenants need quicker access to security deposits

Nichola Taylor is the New Brunswick chair of the tenants rights group ACORN and had her own two-month fight to reclaim a security deposit last year.

Nichola Taylor, chair of the New Brunswick branch of housing rights group ACORN, said the province needs a system that can resolve disputes over security deposits in days, not months. (Shane Fowler/CBC)

She said that normally, tenants who are moving need access to their security deposit quickly to help finance a new apartment. In the case of disputed amounts, the province needs to find a way to make decisions in days, not months, she said.

"It is such a long-winded process," Taylor said. "The whole system needs an overhaul and needs to be rewritten and made easier."

Reinhart agreed with that. She is happy with the decision in her favour but appalled by how long it took.

From first applying for the return of her deposit in early April, until Doucette's decision to release the money in mid- December, Reinhart was left waiting more than eight months. She was then told processing her payment and mailing a cheque to her could take up to three weeks more.

Given no evidence was submitted showing she wilfully damaged anything, she said it is hard to understand why it took so long to reach a decision.

"If I was [pregnant] I would have had a baby by now," Reinhart said. "It was lengthy and unnecessary."

On Friday, a question to the Tenant and Landlord Relations Office about how long disputed security deposit claims normally take was acknowledged, but a spokesperson said the information was not immediately available.

Hundreds of apartment buildings in New Brunswick have changed hands in the last three years, including these two in Saint John. Not all new landlords know what condition individual apartments were in when current tenants began renting. (Robert Jones/CBC)

In a final frustration, Reinhart will receive only the original $850 she deposited with the province, not the $155 in interest it would have earned over the 64 months the province has held onto it.

According to legislation, interest is kept by the province as a charge to the tenant  "to help defray the administrative expenses" of running the Tenant and Landlord Relations Office.

Records show that as of last March the province was collecting interest on $47.3 million in tenants' security deposits it holds.