Landlord fined for finding new tenants instead of demolishing Vancouver home
The B.C. Supreme Court recently upheld a $43,000 fine for a Vancouver landlord who evicted four tenants after saying he was demolishing their house but never did.
The landlord was renting out an East Vancouver home to two sets of tenants, a pair in the basement and a pair on the main floor, when he served an eviction notice with four months’ notice in October 2021.
The notice stated the tenants had to leave because the landlord was demolishing their house.
The tenants left in February 2022. Instead of demolishing the house, the landlord rented it to new tenants three months later.
The first set of tenants took their former landlord to the Residential Tenancy Branch and were each awarded 12 months’ rent for being evicted in bad faith. The landlord was ordered to pay the basement tenants $17,000 and the main floor tenants $26,000.
However, the landlord then went to the B.C. Supreme Court, asking it to reverse the RTB’s decision so he wouldn’t have to pay the fine. He argued marital difficulties contributed to the change in plans for the rental property.
The judge, however, found the landlord didn’t follow the law for a demolition eviction. The court learned the landlord never had a permit to demolish the house.
“He either applied for or obtained various other permits between March 2020 and August 2022 but was never in receipt of a demolition permit,” the judge wrote. “It is thus clear that the petitioner was not in compliance with the provisions of the RTA in October 2021, when he served the four months’ notice to end tenancy.”
A landlord is only allowed to end the tenancy for demolition in good faith if they have all the necessary permits and approvals. The judge found the arbitrator’s initial decision to be valid, noting that the landlord failed to establish extenuating circumstances that prevented him from demolishing the East Vancouver house.
The judge dismissed the landlord’s application and ordered the landlord to pay the tenants’ additional legal costs and the original fine.