Hunter’s Hints

Hunters Hints By Hunter Boucher, Director of Operations, LandlordBC

In December of 2018 the Rental Housing Task Force presented a final report of their in-depth investigation of the rental housing industry. This investigation included significant consultation with landlords and tenants through in-person community forums, written submissions and online discussion. The report, titled Recommendations and Findings primarily focused on 23 recommendations, all with the aim to help modernize the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) and overall rental housing industry. While the report came out in December of 2018, most of the recommendations are yet to be acted on; this is in part due to the sheer amount of policy work needed to bring these recommendations to life. There are a few recommendations for other pieces of legislation but, most are aimed at the RTA and Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB). The RTB has begun the necessary research and policy work to bring these recommendations to life and we will likely see several years of changes as this work is completed. In this Hunters Hints I will review some of the task force’s recommendations and where they are at. Recommendation 1: Stop renovictions. This first recommendation is meant to address the concerns many tenants have regarding landlords ending tenancies to allow for repairs or renovations. The recommendation states that the RTB should monitor the situation as we have already seen many changes to this Notice to End Tenancy. There is direction to take further action if the changes already implemented are not successful in curbing misuse of this Notice to End Tenancy. To review, the changes to this Notice to End Tenancy includes an increase to the penalty for bad faith from two months rent compensation to 12 months rent compensation. Additionally, the notice period has changed from two months to four months, which also increased the amount of time a tenant has to dispute the notice to 30 days from the date the notice is received. LandlordBC members have access to extensive guides on the two and four month Notices to End Tenancy in the members only section of the LandlordBC website.

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Recommendations 5: Strengthen enforcement of the law, including implementing a clear process for making, investigating and reporting administrative penalty complaints. This recommendation addresses the concern many have over how problematic landlords and tenants who repeatedly are found to be non-compliant with the RTA and Residential Tenancy Regulations. The RTB has long had a process to address repeat offenders through administrative penalties though these powers were limited and seldom used. Beginning in 2017 we have seen a strengthening of legislation and the creation of the RTB’s Compliance and Enforcement Unit. The Compliance and Enforcement Unit has a mandate to investigate significant and repeated infractions of the RTA and its regulations and where possible bring the offending parties into compliance. In situations where a landlord or tenant does not come into compliance the Compliance and Enforcement Unit can and has issued administrative penalties. This unit also has the ability to publish its decisions when it feels it may be necessary, and we expect to see several published in the coming months.

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Hunters Hints (Cont’d) Recommendation 6: Strengthen penalties for breaking the law, including refusal of service for outstanding administrative penalties. The primary focus of the Compliance and Enforcement Unit is help landlords and tenants come into compliance. If, administrative penalties are levied, failure to pay may result in that party being refused service through the RTB’s Dispute Resolution service. Recommendation 10: Maintain rent tied to the renter, not the unit. Leading up to the publication of the Rental Housing Rask Force’s report, there was significant pressure from various tenants’ advocacy groups to tie rent and specifically rent increases to the rental unit. This would have meant that landlords would not have the ability to raise rent between tenancies higher than the allowed rent increase percentage. The Rental Housing Task Force, due to LandlordBC’s advocacy work, included a recommendation stating that rent increases should remain tied to the renter and not the rental unit. Recommendation 12: Make the Residential T e nancy Branch more responsive, accessible and proactive with more opportunities to learn from and educate landlords and renters on their rights and responsibilities. As LandlordBC is best positioned to address the concerns of landlords and to educate them, the Hon. Selina Robinson, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing, commissioned LandlordBC to deliver a series of robust regional educational workshops. These workshops are meant to educate landlords, property managers, rental building managers and resident caretakers on their rights and responsibilities. During the fall of 2019 LandlordBC visited 13 communities across the province delivering a four-hour Landlord 101 workshop. These workshops were just part one of our regional education tour and in the fall of 2020, we will be returning to provide landlords with Landlord 102 which includes education on more complex landlord/ tenant issues. Recommendation 18: Speed up the return of damage deposits to tenants by allowing tenants to make a direct request to the Residential Te nancy Branch for the damage deposit where no damage has been found and reported by the landlord.

In 2017 there was a change to the Residential Tenancy Act that allowed for the option for tenants to apply to have their security deposit returned via a direct request process. The change to the legislation was made, but no action was taken to implement this change. The Rental Housing Task Force highlighted this as a simple step to increase efficiently of RTB’s Dispute Resolution Services.

After significant investigation and input from LandlordBC into how to best set up this process, the RTB has now made this tool available. This change is a step in the right direction in the RTB’s efforts to streamline their Dispute Resolution Services and reduce hearing wait times.

Overall, the change is minimal. Landlords have 15 days from the date of the end of tenancy or the date they get the forwarding address to properly deal with the deposit; this is not new. If a landlord does not take the appropriate action within this timeline, a tenant may apply for the return of the deposit through dispute resolution. Previously this hearing would be a standard participatory hearing which would be scheduled several weeks to several months out. Under the new process, these claims will be dealt with in a much quicker direct request process.

A landlord’s right regarding the use of deposits has not changed and as always, it is important that landlords are educated on how to correctly handle the deposit at the end of tenancy.

Summary

We will keep our members up-to-date on new developments within our industry, and specifically that stem from The Rental Housing Task Force’s report. LandlordBC is thoroughly engaged with the RTB and other government agencies as the voice of landlords in B.C. AD card:q7 12/9/11 9:52 AM Page 1

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