Editor:
I sympathize with Mr. Eagles’s experience of delay in getting justice from the Residential Tenancy Branch.
I take issue, however, with his perception that landlords have “no rights” and that they are “constantly targeted and blamed for everything...”. Many of us blame the housing crisis in general.
Years of real estate speculation has driven both house prices and rents into the stratosphere. Housing, a basic human right, is becoming unaffordable for more and more people.
The reason it can take up to a year to evict someone is that the Residential Tenancy Branch has been underfunded. This affects both landlords and tenants. The government has recently announced that money will be put into Residential Tenancy in order to reduce the backlog. The spokesperson for Landlord B.C. plus a tenants’ rights advocate were interviewed together on CBC Radio recently. They agreed that this funding increase will benefit both parties.
Regardless, in this time of shortage, the tenant is the underdog. The landlord is restricted to raising the rent by a small percentage each year. But, between tenants, there is no restriction. In a rental shortage this loophole incentivizes unscrupulous landlords to evict long-term tenants in order to double the rent (or more). No matter how good a tenant that person has been, they find themselves evicted on a pretense with no timely way of fighting back. They are then assured of having to pay more for less than what they’ve lost—if they can find anything at all. No tenant can feel secure—even if they have a decent landlord now, there is the constant fear that person might sell and they’ll be evicted by the new owner.
Anne Miles, Gibsons
