West End Renters Triumph Against Landlords

NEWS: West End renters triumph against landlords

Source: The Westender
By: Jackie Wong
01/21/2010 12:00 AM

After more than a year of tenant-landlord conflict, residents of the West End’s Seafield apartment building were relieved last week to learn that the rent increases applied for by their landlords were overturned by the B.C. Supreme Court. The January 12 judgement by Supreme Court Justice Linda Loo called the landlords’ application for 15- to 38-per-cent increases in the 78-year-old building “patently unreasonable.”

A B.C. Supreme Court judge declared it “unreasonable” that the landlords of the West End’s Seafield apartment building (pictured) applied to increase rents by up to 38 per cent. Credit: Jackie Wong

Madame Justice Loo ordered the landlords — a brother-in-law duo who own Gordon Nelson Investments, a property management firm that purchased the Seafield in summer 2008 — to refund tenants the difference of the increased rents they had paid since April 2009, the month in which a dispute-resolution officer at the B.C. Residential Tenancy Office (RTO) controversially approved Gordon Nelson’s application for the increases. The landlords argued the increases would bring the Seafield, a 14-unit building located at 1436 Pendrell Street, up to market value.

The Seafield’s close-knit community of long-term tenants banded together to bring the dispute before the Supreme Court in November 2009, in the hope of drawing attention to what they and other tenants’ rights advocates saw as unfair legislation.

Seafield tenants will likely start receiving refunds in the form of deductions on upcoming months’ rents, although this has not been confirmed. But the tenants aren’t sure when or if they’ll be back in court, in the event that their landlords appeal the judgement. Property manager Chris Nelson told WE in an e-mail that he and Gordon Nelson Investments partner Jason Gordon will make a decision within the 30-day time frame allowed for appeal.

A statement on Gordon Nelson’s website says the company is confident that the Seafield rent increases will be restored in a re-hearing or “quite possibly result in a larger market-supported rent increase, as rents in Vancouver and the West End have continued to increase in the face of tough economic times.”

A representative from the B.C. Ministry of Housing and Social Development, who asked not to be named in this article, told WE the ministry is currently reviewing the Supreme Court decision, and that a new hearing will be scheduled in the near future.

The rent-increase issue is the last in a long line of disagreements between Seafield tenants and Gordon Nelson Investments. In fall 2008, WE reported that Seafield tenants felt threatened by Gordon Nelson’s intimations that tenants would be evicted to make way for building renovations. “After only a month of living here, I was being told I was going to get kicked out of my own home,” recalls Seafield tenant Melissa Mewdell. “I had no idea what to do about it. If these guys weren’t around to help me,” she adds, gesturing to her neighbours, who have supported each other through the conflict, “I probably would have left.”

Even though the disputes have resulted in Seafield tenants becoming extremely well versed in residential tenancy procedure, the lack of transparency they’ve experienced at the RTO has been troubling, says Mark Moore, who lives at the Seafield with his family. “You can’t find out how many of these cases there are [at the RTO]. You can’t find out how they were decided. There are no transcripts kept of any hearing. If this is where things are going to be adjudicated… it would at least be nice to know what’s going on here. This is notwithstanding the fact that we never know how many people are evicted who never go to the RTO because they don’t complain.”

Vancouver-West End MLA Spencer Herbert has been working with Seafield tenants and other local renters during their lengthy struggles with the province’s residential tenancy system. As part of efforts to resolve what he sees as gaps in B.C.’s Residential Tenancy Act that leave long-term renters vulnerable to unfair rent increases, Herbert brought forward a private member’s bill in November 2008. It has not yet been reviewed in the B.C. Legislature.

“I really hope that Housing Minister Rich Coleman will look at [the Seafield] decision and will look at the evidence, which is piling up, and decide that the Residential Tenancy Act needs to be reformed,” Herbert says. “B.C. renters owe a huge debt of thanks to the Seafielders for their perseverance, but think about the huge number of people out there who don’t have those resources, who don’t have that sense of community to support each other.”

Increased vacancy rates offer little relief for renters

Westender:  By Jackie Wong
12/23/2009 12:00 AM

Although rental-housing vacancies in and around Vancouver have risen during the past year, finding affordable housing and navigating B.C.’s residential tenancy legislation hasn’t gotten easier, according to housing advocate Sharon Isaak. In her first months working as a seniors’ housing outreach worker for Gordon Neighbourhood House, a multi-use facility that has been a hub of the West End community for decades, Isaak has been swamped with visits from people in search of affordable or subsidized housing, both of which are in short supply in many neighbourhoods.

“Public awareness [of tenancy issues] is much higher than it was three years ago,” says Isaak. “The market was so tight three years ago that it triggered a whole wave of reno-victions” — evictions for the purpose of renovations, after which rents are often significantly increased — “to capitalize on market forces. Tenants are aware of that now. What hasn’t changed is the number of tenants who challenge their evictions at the [Residential Tenancy Office]. Most tenants still find the system far too complicated, and they give up.”

Isaak’s weekly drop-in sessions at Gordon Neighbourhood House have drawn unexpectedly high attendance since they began in mid-October. “They don’t have a lot of resources to turn to,” she says of the attendees. “There’s a few tenant-help groups, there’s a few advocates out there, but it’s largely an underground community that’s hard to access for the average tenant.”

While the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s Fall 2009 rental-market report shows that Vancouver-and-area vacancy rates have increased to 3.6 per cent (up 1.7 per cent from last fall), rental rates are still higher than in 2008. In addition, few purpose-built rental units have been added to the total housing stock. “People aren’t finding affordable places, even though the vacancy rate is up,” Isaak says, adding that the market is now skewed towards short-term renters. “People stay a year, for their lease, and then move out because they can’t afford the rent.”

When addressing an unfair eviction or a tenant-landlord dispute at the Residential Tenancy Office (RTO), tenants continue to face process-related difficulties, particularly since most hearings now take place over the phone. In a February 2008 B.C. Supreme Court case between a tenant and Dispute Resolution Officers under the Residential Tenancy Act, Hon. Mr. Justice Joel Groves recommended that B.C.’s RTO amend its policy regarding telephone conferences. Vancouver-West End MLA Spencer Herbert’s staff has been privy to a number of cases in which a dysfunctional phone-conferencing system at the RTO has cost tenants a fair assessment of their dispute.

“What’s concerning for me is this [Groves] case was last year, but we’re still hearing about people with the same problems,” Herbert says. “It’s something we’ve been hearing for years from tenants, and from landlords, too.”

Most recently, with the Olympics less than two months away, reported disputes have led to renewed discussion about Olympics-related evictions. Earlier this month, a group of East Vancouver tenants went to the media to claim their eviction was related to their landlord seeking Games-related profits. But for renters like Katrin Lohuaru, the motives for her own eviction from a shared Cambie Street heritage house are less clear.

“The landlord is intending to completely renovate the house we’re living in… We received a letter from him on the first of December, asking us to vacate by the end of February, possibly sooner,” Lohuaru says. “The notice he gave us wasn’t on the official form; he’s not actually allowed to ask us to go unless he has all of his building permits in place.”

Even so, the landlord’s explicit intention to evict his tenants for renovations was enough to motivate Lohuaru to move, but she says it was impossible to find a new rental with comparable location and price. “I’d been looking on Craigslist for a new place, [and] I’ve found that the sublet category particularly is saturated with Olympic rentals, which are grossly more expensive than the suites would be otherwise,” she says.

Since Lohuaru’s eviction has not been made official by her landlord, she can’t dispute it at the RTO, and is not eligible for a break on her final month’s rent to cover the costs of moving. “Unless a landlord gives us legal notice, it puts us in a very vulnerable position,” she says.

While Lohuaru is extremely knowledgeable about her rights as a tenant, wisdom, unfortunately, comes with experience: This is the third time she’s experienced an unofficial eviction for home renovations. More proof, perhaps, of Isaak’s assertion that B.C.’s residential tenancy system needs revision.

Conference calls no way to settle tenant-landlord disputes

Easy to get that disconnected feeling:
Conference calls no way to settle tenant-landlord disputes

By Jon Ferry, The Province
December 16, 2009

It’s cold, it’s hard to get work and it’s tough to find an affordable place to rent these days, particularly in Metro Vancouver. Which is why the government must do all it can to ensure tenants aren’t being gouged.

When landlord-tenant disputes arise, B.C.’s housing ministry is supposed to resolve them through prompt and fair hearings, not leave either party on hold.

The trouble is, the vast majority of these hearings now are done by telephone conference call. And that, according to Vancouver-West End NDP MLA Spencer Herbert, is causing numerous problems — for seniors, the hard of hearing, those with limited English or those who simply get lost in the phone system.

“In some cases, they have called in at the appointed time, but have never been dialled through to the case, leading to their case being dismissed,” Herbert told me. “In many cases, the people I have spoken with have just given up or accepted rulings that might have been thrown out, had they had a fairer and more even process.”

Some landlords also find the conference calls frustrating. But it’s usually the tenants who come off worse, especially if they’re battling big property owners with seasoned staff.

Vancouver housing advocate Leslie Stern, who’s just been evicted from the False Creek townhome she has lived in for 25 years, says telephone hearings are impersonal and mechanical: “Everything seems biased towards a developer or a landlord who has staff and means.”

And Sharon Isaak, co-founder of the tenants’ rights group Renters at Risk, stresses they can be very confusing. “They say they’re making it streamlined, but it’s not,” she said, adding it’s nearly impossible for tenants who want a face-to-face hearing to get one.

Vernon mom June Ross, though, took on the system and won. Her 2007 application to recover money owed her by her landlord was initially dismissed by a dispute-resolution adjudicator on the grounds she’d failed to show up for the arranged telephone hearing.

That decision was upheld by a second adjudicator, but later dismissed by the B.C. Supreme Court.

The court found Ross had, in fact, followed instructions and had stayed on the line until it simply went dead. Indeed, Justice Joel Groves ordered the dispute to be reheard because the two adjudicators had “breached the rules of natural justice.”

Justice Groves said it was certainly not the first time in his experience that this type of problem had arisen, and he urged the Residential Tenancy Branch to provide a separate line for those experiencing call problems.

The B.C. housing ministry told me it appreciated both the court’s decision and its recommendation regarding hearing procedures. A spokesman said: “We do treat the process seriously.”

Well, if that’s the case, the ministry should make it seriously easier for folks to attend hearings in person — and not just at one Lower Mainland location.

Basic fairness is being compromised here. And tenants, as well as some landlords, are being left out in the cold.

© Copyright (c) The Province

Residents given reprieve from rental cat-nundrum

By STEFANIA SECCIA, 24 HOURS

Sharon Isaak - Co-founder Renters At Risk

A west-end group of residents and their cats can breath a sigh of relief after B.C.’s Residential Tenancy Branch blocked the evictions that would have forced them – and their furry friends – out.

The group of cat-owners had verbal permission to keep pets, but last December Hollyburn Properties tried to evict them because of it, said Spencer Herbert, NDP MLA, yesterday.

“This should’ve never happened,” said Herbert outside the west-end apartment building Emerald Terrace.

Mary Milligan, a resident for three years and owner of one cat, said, “You can’t believe the relief I feel.”

Sharon Isaak from the Renters at Risk Campaign (RRC) said Hollyburn was aware of these pets a year ago when it bought the building, but used the excuse now to get long-term residents out in an effort to increase the rent.

“[Hollyburn needs] to be accountable for this,” she said. “Enough is enough.”

But Allan Wesley, Hollyburn general manager, said RRC is putting a spin on it.

“We will continue to consider our residents’ well-being in all policies, including our policy requiring that all residents must have written authorization to have a pet in their unit,” he wrote in a statement.

Source:24 Hours Vancouver