B.C.'s tenancy laws make valid evictions too difficult, landlords say

British Columbia has the highest rate of no-fault evictions in Canada, but some landlords say the province's tenancy rules make it too hard for landlords to raise rent and evict tenants for valid reasons.

No-fault evictions for landlords to renovate, demolish, sell or inhabit a unit, make up about 85 per cent of evictions in B.C., according to recent research from the University of British Columbia.

And they happen nearly twice as often in B.C. compared to the rest of Canada, with some housing experts citing low penalties and rising market rents as incentives for landlords to end tenancies under false pretences, in order to raise rents for the next tenant.

But LandlordBC CEO David Hutniak says the high rate of no-fault evictions is driven by landlords selling their properties to people who want to live in them themselves, because they are unable to raise rents to keep up with their mortgages.

"You cannot survive on negative cash flow year after year after year," Humeniuk told CBC on Thursday.

Sherryl Yeager says she has considered putting her units on AirBnB instead to avoid dealing with tenancy rules she says leaves landlords with no power and long waits for recourse at the Residential Tenancy Board.

Yeager and her husband need to rent two suites in their home in Vancouver's Grandview-Woodland area to afford the mortgage.

"There's a perception that landlords are rich, fat cats who have tons of money and a lot of us aren't," said Yeager, who estimates her variable mortgage payment has doubled and her monthly property costs have risen by $500 since they purchased the house in 2017.

In 2020 Yeager evicted a tenant who vaped marijuana for medical reasons, which exacerbated Yeager's asthma through the shared vents, even though it was a non-smoking unit.

The tenant disputed it at the RTB and moved out during the wait for a hearing, but the vapour continued for months in the interim. They also filed a human rights complaint Yeager says she has spent $35,000 fighting.

"The current legislation is definitely more favourable for tenants."

Tenant advocates say it is still too easy for landlords to evict tenants in B.C. because the onus is on tenants to fight eviction orders rather than on landlords to prove their reasons are true, except in the case of renovictions.

The small penalties for unlawful evictions creates a "perverse incentive" for landlords to evict tenants who have been there the longest and are paying the least in order to raise rents, says Robert Patterson, a lawyer and advocate at Vancouver's Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre.

"The profit margin is enough to convince [landlords] to disregard the law."