The number of times tenants who complained their landlords were trying to force them out of their units spiked in 2022 and 2025 — two years New Brunswick renters were protected by a cap on annual rent increases.

The statistics from the province’s Tenant and Landlord Relations Office raise new questions about landlords’ efforts to circumvent New Brunswick’s rent cap, which was implemented temporarily in 2022, and again last February, as a means of protecting tenants after years of soaring rents.

“I’ve seen tenants who have come to us because they feel that the landlord is harassing them by … trying to use [or] find different ways to terminate the tenancy,” said Jeannette Savoie, director of the University of New Brunswick legal clinic.