B.C. homeowner's Airbnb fight backfires, forced to pay strata over $8K
A B.C. homeowner who initiated a tribunal dispute against her strata found that the case backfired and she ended up owing thousands.
According to a BC Civil Resolution Tribunal dispute, the applicant homeowner claimed the strata revoked permission for her to use a bedroom in her strata as a short-term accommodation.
She asked the tribunal for an order for the strata to stop enforcing the short-term rental bylaw and compensate her for losses. She claimed over $75,000 in damages.
Denying her claims, the strata said it didn’t agree to the short-term accommodation, adding that its bylaws were valid. Additionally, the B.C. strata alleged that the homeowner operated the short-term accommodation in breach of the bylaws.
In a counterclaim, the strata asked for $20,000 in damages related to bylaw fines.
According to the background of the dispute, back in May 2023, the strata adopted a new bylaw that stated that a strata unit must not be used for short-term accommodation purposes. That included websites like Airbnb and VRBO.
The bylaw referred to stays of six months or less, but in April 2024, it was amended to shorten the period to 90 days.
The applicant’s strata lot has two floors in a house shared with another strata lot. There’s one bedroom and bathroom on the main floor, which is where the homeowner wanted to operate her short-term suite. The applicant went as far as to say that she purchased her unit because she believed she would be able to operate a short-term accommodation.
In communications with the strata in January 2023, the strata’s secretary said that the owner could have the right to operate a short-term rental, but the approval would come with several conditions.
The homeowner seemingly accepted the conditions and soon after applied for a business licence. She took possession of the strata unit in March 2023. Her first short-term guest booked a stay on Feb. 12 and arrived on March 30, 2023.
On April 19, 2023, owners of all the strata lots had a meeting, and the minutes discussed the applicant’s short-term accommodation.
“The minutes note concerns about ‘strangers walking across our property, past our bedrooms and living rooms and being able to peer into our bathrooms at all hours of the day and night’ and that one owner reported impacts to privacy and safety. The owners discussed a proposed STA bylaw,” the tribunal decision states.
The municipality suspended the homeowner’s business licence on April 24, 2023, because she failed to provide a letter that the strata authorized her short-term rental.
The anti-short-term-rental bylaw was adopted in May 2023, but other owners complained that the applicant kept having short-term guests in her strata lot. Some of her guests were booked through Airbnb.
In January 2024, the strata sent a letter to the applicant stating that it would levy fines of up to $1,000 a day for contraventions of the bylaw. In February 2024, the homeowner attended a strata hearing with a lawyer. This is when she was informed that she was being hit with $20,000 in bylaw fines.
The tribunal was trying to determine whether or not the strata acted significantly unfairly by revoking her right to manage a short-term rental accommodation in her strata lot. The homeowner didn’t dispute that she didn’t meet with other owners before listing her short-term rental or hosting guests. For that reason and others, the tribunal found that the strata did not treat her unfairly.
Because the strata could only prove some of the short-term accommodation stays, the tribunal found it was entitled to $8,000 instead of the $20,000 it initially claimed. In addition, the tribunal found that it was appropriate to order that the homeowner refrain from breaching the bylaws further.
Ultimately, the homeowner was ordered to pay $8,778.47 for the bylaw fines and tribunal-related fees.