Ways your landlord can jack up your rent in BC

When and how can your landlord increase your rent in BC?

After the BC government announced next year’s rent cap for landlords in the province, it got us thinking about the false sense of security that some renters might feel, thinking that 3% is the only increase they could see due to BC’s laws.

That’s unfortunately not the case. We’ve rounded up a few ways landlords can hike the price and what you can do if you take issue with it.

Financing costs

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Renters in a Victoria apartment building recently learned the hard way that there is another way their landlord could hike the rent by hundreds of dollars.

It came after the Ministry of Housing’s Residential Tenancy Branch ruled that a 23.5% increase over two years was allowed to offset the costs of the landlord’s variable mortgage interest rate, which had gone from 1.9% to 6.65% last summer.

The building’s owners were able to prove that they incurred a financial loss due to financing costs, which couldn’t be foreseen under reasonable circumstances, the branch ruled.

The tenants in the two-bedroom, one-bath suites who had paid between $1,282 to $1,550 monthly will see an increase of about $300 to $364 per month. That’s not including the current provincial increases, which will be an additional $44 to $54 in 2024 due to the 3.5% provincial rent cap and slightly less in 2025 at 3%.

Parking increases

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They aren’t the only ones who found out after the fact that there are some loopholes. Daily Hive spoke with tenants in an East Vancouver rental unit who complained after their parking fees increased 35% in recent years. This is completely legal, as the parking fees weren’t included in the tenancy agreement. Still, one tenant said it was “very, very unsettling and amps up the precarity of being a renter.”

Daily Hive found documentation that six tenants in another building did win a fight against a parking increase in a May 2023 filing at the RTB. That was because their tenancy agreements obligated them to pay $50 or $75 a month, not the $150 their landlord was trying to change it to.

“Pursuant to section 62 of the Act, I find that the total rental payable for each of the Tenants named in their respective Applications includes the amount paid for base rent and their parking as parking is an included service or facility pursuant to their tenancy agreements,” the decision reads in part.

This is a wordy way of saying that the landlord had to pay these six folks back, and their parking can only increase by the rent cap percentage going forward. For the other 70 or so tenants in that building who didn’t have the same paperwork, they were out of luck, and their parking fees skyrocketed.

Storage fees

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Another one that isn’t against the law — as long as the landlord didn’t link the price to the tenancy agreement — is the storage fee increase.

“If a rental agreement between a landlord and tenant states that the rent includes parking spot(s) or storage locker(s), then the Residential Tenancy Act would apply. That means that the landlord is still only permitted to increase the rent once in a 12-month period, from the last increase or when the rent was initially set, and is subject to the annual rent increase limit, which is set at 3.5% in 2024,” the Ministry said in a previous story.

Landlords are legally allowed to increase the price of renting this space, and tenants can either choose to pay or leave, aka take their stuff and store it somewhere else.

While this is an oversimplification, you might be the exception, and you could seek help navigating the fine print.

“If the tenant believes these fees are unreasonable, they should contact the RTB for help. Separate agreements may have no fee limits, so tenants should carefully read and understand any agreement before signing,” the province’s website reads in part.

Property upgrades

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Did you move into an older building and then learn that the roof needs to be replaced, and you’ve been slapped with a rent increase as a result? That, dear renter, might be totally above board and part of a capital expenditure rent increase if the landlord’s application has been approved by the Residential Tenancy Branch.

Big repairs like that or installing a new boiler are covered under the allowed reasons to increase rent, but the landlord must approach them in the right way.

First off, those repairs can’t be annual, like gutter cleaning, as it’s got to be something that will last for the next five years, and it can’t be something that was broken or needs replacing as a result of bad property management. Plus, say the parking lot needs fixing and that will be a significant price tag, the tenant isn’t going to be paying thousands more that year. There’s a rent increase limit on how much your rent can increase for these situations, and you can calculate that here.

Additional Occupant Clauses

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This one has changed! While it used to be totally okay for a landlord to, say, charge a baby as an additional occupant, that’s no longer the case. Minors are exempt from a rent increase, but if you have another adult move in with you, they might have to pay more.

“If the amount of rent payable is to vary with the number of occupants, parties must set out in their written tenancy agreement the amount by which it varies. If an additional occupant resides in the rental unit, the rent will increase by the amount specified in the tenancy agreement. If an occupant stops residing in the rental unit, the rent will decrease by that same amount,” the province said.

While all other rent increases must be given with three months’ notice, this one does not have a time limit, and you would be forced to pay immediately.

Fighting the good fight?

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Lasse Hvitved with the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre (TRAC) said while these increases do happen, they are rare, and most renters shouldn’t see an increase beyond the provincial allowed amount.

“The 23% one, in cases like those, first of all, that case doesn’t set a precedent, but in cases like that, the increases have to be unforeseeable. In other cases, you know, extraordinary increases in operating costs, right? So we’re all talking about situations outside of normal,” he said, explaining that large-scale repairs must be very clearly defined and outlined.

Hvitved said there’s been an increase in calls to the free legal advocacy organization about parking and storage fee increases. He said it’s important to note that it doesn’t always seem as cut and dry as your landlord makes it sound.

We asked Vancouverites how they feel about the BC government’s 3% rent increase cap for 2025.

For seniors like Kristen, they worry a rent hike might force them to make some difficult decisions around groceries and diet just to make ends meet. #bcpoli pic.twitter.com/ptszphtZQe

— Daily Hive Vancouver (@DailyHiveVan) August 29, 2024

“For example, if you had your parking spot since you moved in and there was never any talk about it, that could be a pretty good indication that it was just included in your tenancy. So, the mere act of it not being expressly included does not automatically mean that it is not part of your tenancy.”

Adding that while the 23% might have been a one-off, there is concern that more landlords might try and use that as a bargaining chip to get a mutual rent increase agreement by, say, suggesting they could ask for more, so why not just agree to the 10% or so?

Hvitved said the most important thing to do when you get an unusual rent increase is not to agree to it. You can pay it, but ensure that you tell your landlord you are paying it out of protest.

“In my many years doing this, I’ve never seen a mutual agreement to increase rent that wasn’t quite abusive,” Hvitved said.

With files from Megan Devlin