Top court sides with ‘renovicted’ tenant
Landlord tried to hike rent 64%, evict resident
The B.C. Supreme Court has given a reprieve to a Vancouver woman who claims she has been fighting a so-called renoviction from her West End apartment.
Vivian Baumann went to court after her new landlord gave her an eviction notice in July last year, telling her that her one-bedroom suite needed to be vacated to carry out renovations.
In July 2015, she had resisted when her landlord had applied to have her $730-a-month rent increased to $1,200 a month, a 64 per cent hike that was well above the maximum yearly increase allowable under the law.
Baumann, who has lived in her suite for 17 years, said the landlord was not sincere in the desire to renovate and only wanted to get her out to move in higher-paying tenants, a manoeuvre that has come to be known as a renoviction.
A costume builder in the film and TV industry, she disputed the eviction notice. The case went to an arbitrator with the provincial Residential Tenancy Branch. In January, the arbitrator ruled in favour of the landlord, Aarti Investments Ltd., upholding the eviction notice.
Baumann was given two days to vacate her apartment or face the possibility the landlord would seek a writ of possession and have bailiffs remove her, so she had to seek an interim stay of the eviction and apply for a judicial review of the branch’s decision at the B.C. Supreme Court.
On Friday, Judge Michael Brundrett of the B.C. Supreme Court set aside the eviction order and sent the case back to the tenancy branch for a new hearing.
Jonathan Blair, a lawyer with the Community Legal Assistance Society who represented Baumann, said the judge concluded the branch’s decision was “patently unreasonable.”
One of the judge’s findings was that the arbitrator failed to consider a compromise offered by Baumann — she was willing to vacate the premises during the renovations and come back after they were finished.
“The judge said, yeah, that should have been considered by the arbitrator, and they didn’t consider it, and it wasn’t reasonable,” Blair said.
Baumann said she feels like she’s in “judicial review hangover” because she packed up her apartment in case she would have to leave.
“I just know that I have a bit of time and that my evidence will hopefully be reheard,” she said Wednesday.
“I still feel quite vulnerable about my predicament (but) I know I have some time.”
Baumann said she found the process of dealing with the Residential Tenancy Branch “incredibly daunting ” and thanked the First United Church for acting as an advocate for her initially.
“Many landlords renovict tenants to try to get around the rentincrease limitations in the law,” Didi Dufresne, manager of legal advocacy for the church, said in a statement on Wednesday. “The renovation provisions of the Residential Tenancy Act are being used to evict lower-paying tenants.”
In October, the B.C. government introduced legislation aimed at protecting the province’s renters from the so-called renovictions.
Blair said he hopes the changes will help tenants deal with renovictions and “out-of-control” rent increases.
Michael Drouillard, a lawyer for the landlord, said his client was “disappointed” with the ruling and is considering an appeal.
He said that because of the potential appeal, he was restricted in what he could say but said if there is an appeal, it would likely be on the basis that decisions by the branch are not to be overturned except in the clearest of cases.
Drouillard said his client has 30 days to file an appeal.