If you’re planning to commit a crime, there is ordinarily no contract that will make the illegal legal. However, if you’re planning to raise a tenant’s rent beyond the generous maximum our province allows, you can do so via a fixed-term tenancy agreement.
If you were new to our corner of the planet, you might wonder why any renter would agree to such an agreement. The reason is simple: the housing market is essentially closed.
Renters have about the same chance of encountering an apartment vacancy as they do of running into an MLA at the legislature this fall.
And as long as rental rates attempt to keep the torrid pace established by our overheated housing market, renters will sign terrible agreements for much the same reason a hungry man might eat spoiled food. There’s no choice.
Today’s front-page story of West Vancouver seniors who have been isolated by a malfunctioning elevator underlines just how little power renters have.
There is nowhere for an aggrieved renter to move and all too often, no one to whom they can go. Even as a term like renoviction becomes commonplace in our vocabulary, the B.C. Tenancy Act seems like nothing so much as a government labyrinth staffed by well-meaning but toothless bureaucrats.
And while we appreciate the new landlord registry, scheduled to launch in January 2017, it still asks tenants to wield power they simply don’t have.
Until some sort of humanitarian or even economic logic prevails, renters will continue to be casualties of bidding wars.
What are your thoughts? Send us a letter via email by clicking here or post a comment below.
