BC tenant fined for deliberately not paying rent for five years
BC’s Residential Tenancy Branch has fined a tenant who it found deliberately didn’t pay rent for five years.
Colleen June Clancy has been ordered to pay an administrative penalty of $5,000 over a series of tenancies between 2018 and 2023. The RTB found the tenant would enter into the tenancy agreements and not pay rent before being evicted. In multiple cases she was ordered to pay landlords back missed rent, but also failed to pay those.
The RTB found she deliberately failed to pay rent during eight separate tenancies over five years in its December 2023 decision.
“I find that the actions of the Respondent in this matter especially egregious and serve to undermine the legitimacy of the settlement agreement process and to erode public confidence in these processes and must be deterred through significant sanctions,” Scott McGregor, director of compliance and enforcement with the RTB, wrote.
The case came to light after one of her former landlords entered a complaint, and a subsequent investigation revealed the pattern of rent non-payment.
The RTB noted it’s a tenant’s responsibility to pay their rent under the BC Tenancy Act, whether or not the landlord fulfills their duties.
Over the course of five years, the tenant accumulated rent arrears of more than $40,000.
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