The provincial government is going to bat for renters who are squeezed by high rents in a market where vacancy rates hover near zero. It’s not a magic bullet, but it will help.
On Thursday, Housing Minister Selina Robinson introduced an amendment to the Residential Tenancy Act to eliminate most “vacate clauses” for fixed-term leases.
The way the act is written, landlords can impose a vacate clause in a lease, so renters have to leave their homes at the end of the lease. The landlord can then raise the rent, even if the same person rents the unit again.
It’s a way for landlords to get around rent control, which currently limits increases to two per cent plus inflation.
“This will give renters the security they deserve and help bring integrity to the rental industry, which is good for landlords,” Robinson said.
David Hutniak, CEO of Landlord B.C., welcomed the initiative because he said abuse of the loophole by a few people tarnishes the whole industry.
Before we rush to beat up on landlords, it’s useful to remember that this is not a good-and-evil situation. While some landlords take advantage of the loophole to hammer renters, most are not wearing black hats.
While every renter can recall problems with landlords, every landlord has run into problem tenants.
Landlord Paul Baker told the Times Colonist’s Amy Smart he wouldn’t consider having a tenant without a vacate clause.
“It’s the safety net for getting undesired tenants out. Without it, the legislation is so heavily biased toward the renter,” Baker said.
Tenants, of course, argue it’s the landlords who hold the power.
Regardless of where one stands on that dispute, affordable housing is in short supply in Victoria. Landlords who raise rents exorbitantly squeeze out tenants who have nowhere else to go in a tight rental market.
Advocates with the Together Against Poverty Society want to see the rent tied to the unit, rather than the tenant, so landlords can’t raise rents by finding new tenants.
However, the government must be careful when it manipulates the rental housing market. Most rental housing is built by the private sector, and investors and landlords have to be able to maintain their buildings and see a reasonable return on their investment.
Tighten the screws too much, and we could return to an era when no new rental units are being built. B.C. Liberal MLA Todd Stone warned that if the changes are too restrictive, some landlords might remove their units from the market. That would just make a bad situation worse.
B.C. has about 1.5 million renters. For many of them, home ownership is an impossible dream, so they need available, affordable places to live.
We might say: “If you can’t afford to live here, move.” But these are the people who do the thousands of jobs that keep our communities alive. They are the youth who keep our communities vibrant.
A city of wealthy retirees, investment bankers and software engineers would soon wither and die. To accommodate people of all income levels, the province has to place a finger delicately on the scales.
No one should deny landlords a return on their investment, but the government is right to close a loophole that some have abused.
