Homeowners ordered to pay BC strata thousands for rental bylaw breach

A BC homeowner was ordered to fork over thousands in fines to strata because it broke rental bylaw rules.

BC Strata Plan LMS 3187 brought a tribunal case against Wendy Chow, Patrifica Fong, and Troy Gebhart, claiming that they rented out a unit contrary to the rental restriction bylaws that were in place between June and November 2022.

Chow, Fong, and Gebhart, to whom we will refer as the respondents, co-own a unit and disagreed that they broke any rules. However, the BC Civil Resolution Tribunal didn’t see it that way.

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In a decision posted online, the tribunal set out to determine whether Bylaw 38 was breached. Bylaw 38 is related to renting out a unit without approval.

The respondents purchased SL47 on May 25, 2017. Immediately, they rented it to Gebhart’s parents, who remained tenants until May 2022, when they moved out.

Then, beginning July 1, 2022, the respondents rented SL47 to unrelated tenants. The strata manager informed the respondents that this was in breach of Bylaw 38, which limits the number of rentals in the strata to 12. They’d also failed to obtain the strata council’s permission.

The strata informed the respondents that they would be subject to fines of $500 every seven days. They were asked to respond to the allegation or request a council hearing within two weeks, which they did, and it was held on July 25, 2022. On August 4, the co-owners were advised that the council decided to impose the weekly fines.

Several bylaw exemptions were introduced in July 2022. There were no restrictions on renting a strata unit to a family member. However, because they rented out the unit to unrelated tenants on July 1, 2022, they were not exempt from the bylaw.

The respondents believed they were on top of the waitlist to be exempt from the bylaw, “so they proceeded to rent it out without seeking the strata council’s permission,” the tribunal said.

Ultimately, the tribunal determined that the respondents did indeed breach the bylaw and dismissed the claim that they were treated “significantly unfairly.”

In the end, the respondents were ordered to pay the strata $9,248.43, which included $8,500 for bylaw fines.