Apparently, the answer is yes.
We recently bought a house with two basement suites in it, and one of the tenants pays substantially less than market rates. Of course, he’s been there eleven years. I think Alicia and I have decided not to raise his rent because he’s got a lot invested in the building, and we’d like to keep him, but apparently it would be pretty easy to raise his rent to market rates in one fell swoop.
Apparently, all a landlord has to do is prove that there are specific units on the market renting for more than their unit. That’s it. Seems a little scary, but I can certainly understand the logic. If you bought a building expecting a certain amount of rent per unit, and then found that these units were renting for so much less than you expected, you might have trouble making your MTG payment, or at the very least getting a decent return on your investment.
As for what to do if you’re a tenant faced with a massive rent increase… Try finding specific units in your area renting at the same rate as yours. This may not help according to the language of the Residential Tenancy Act, but remember that arbitraters are human and might be swayed by these kinds of arguments. Also, do what the tenants in the above linked article did and go to local media. Perhaps the added attention will scare the landlords into revising their opinions.
In the end, however, you might just have to pony-up more rent or move out. This is one area of the Act that seems to favour landlords over tenants.
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The problem with Vancouver is that people seem to get addicted to it. It’s like a bad relationship that you just can’t quit, even though you can’t do a very good job of naming any one part of it that’s really good. Well, maybe the mountains, and the forests, and the ocean (Well, I know it’s not working, but she’s better looking than most of the other girls I’ve dated, so I want to make it last).
In other cities, I think, people would have moved away by now. There are other cities that have better (average income)/(average cost of living) ratios than we do, that have at least as many fun things to do as we do here.
No one seems willing to vote with their feet. No one seems willing to refuse a bad deal, or at least, not when refusing requires any work, or any major changes in their lives.
Until that happens, obviously no landlord has any motivation to lower their rent… or to stop increasing it for that matter. The people in this city, given enough pressure, would probably be willing to pay every cent they have into rent or mortgages, and then beg for food and clothes.
I guess I’m playing chicken. If other people get the idea first, and start leaving, I’d be happy to stay. Otherwise, in a couple of years, it might be time for this town to eat my dust.
Tenants to Vancouver: “I can’t quit you!”.
Well, people are creatures of inertia. It can be extremely frightening to move cities, away from existing support structures. I’m not sure “moving away” is effective for all but a tiny percentage of renters
Rents in Vancouver are (loosely) tied to property values. Lower those, and rents might return to “reasonable”.
Well, oddly, rents increased seemingly in step with property when the bubble swelled, but haven’t really come down now that the bubble’s relaxed a bit. But why lower your prices if that’s what people have shown they’re willing to pay.
I guess that’s what I was getting at above… renters need to actually show landlords that they’re unwilling to pay, and in Vancouver, I think things could get worse and worse, and people would still be lining up to sell their organs to keep living here.
If it comes to that, I’m confident that I’ll have the resolve to move on.
This is the way everything works. Take gas prices for instance. Gas is really low per barrel now, but the price at the pump hasn’t changed much. People just get used to the pain, and sellers/landlords realize this.