At Death's Door? Better Give Notice at Alward Place

By 250 News

An Alward Place resident says people who live at the facility are expected to give notice when they are going to die.

The resident of the facility says if a person dies at Alward Place, say for example, on August 15^TH, they (the estate)will be expected to pay for rent for the month of September.

They (the Estate) also will be asked to pay the $15 dollar parking fee for the following month.

The resident  told  Opinion250 "Now I don’t know when I’m going to die, so how in the world can I give my notice?  He says, to make matters worse, "The families are expected to clean out the apartment, and get rid of personal belongings during a period of grief. You can hardly expect a family to want to get right in there and clean the belongings out when they have to look after other arrangements like burial, etc. "  He said  a person’s will may also contain some specifics and people don’t feel like reading the will the day the person dies.

Mark Karjaluoto, Director of Communications for the Northern Health Authority, says assisted living falls under the Residential Tenancy Act, because the units are private apartments with support around meals and health services. Under the Act Karjaluoto says,"If I’m renting an apartment from you, I’m required to give you a full month’s notice if I leave. So If I give you notice now and vacate now, I still owe you rent for September “. This applies to Alward Place.

He added "If the people managing the estate have personal effects in the apartment and they get them out fairly quickly and the place is cleaned over the next two weeks and we can re rent the apartment and have it occupied for September, we would refund what had been paid."  He concluded with  “We are reasonable about these sorts of things".

Kerry MacDonald, Regional Manager for Shaw Cable says"No we don’t make people pay an extra month for their cable TV when they die , We understand only too well."  MacDonald says Shaw tries to make dealing  with the account as easy as possible "If we are contacted by the family or the executor after a person has died,  we will make the bill retroactive to the date of death.  We don’t want to charge people who have passed away for a service they did not receive."

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