B.C. updates notice period for personal-use evictions

The B.C. government has backtracked on part of new eviction-notice rules for landlords that require them to give four months' notice if they plan to occupy the property for personal use.

The four-month requirement was preventing some first-time home buyers from purchasing a tenanted property — especially those under Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation programs, which require the property to be vacant at possession.

"I heard from several realtors that simply flat-out advised that any of their first-time home buyers — or any of their buyers that are coming to the table with less than 20 per cent down — that any tenanted property was off the table for them," said Rebecca Casey, president of the Canadian Mortgage Brokers Association of B.C.

The four-month timeline the government put in place with the new changes to the rental tenancy act made it so people buying properties with tenants couldn't get a mortgage approved, because the timeline extended beyond the 120-day approval limit.

B.C. Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon says real estate, mortgage and building industry stakeholders, as well as first-time buyers who said they could be shut out of the market, brought their concerns about the policy to the province.

"When you have information that comes to you that can make it easier for everyone," Kahlon said, "it's important to adjust and that's what we've been able to do."

Renters are getting better protections, he added, because they are still going to be given three months' notice instead of the two months that were required before the policy change.

Trevor Hargreaves, vice-president of government relations and policy with the B.C. Real Estate Association, applauds the move, but says the province could have got the policy right the first time around if it had slowed down and consulted more stakeholders.

"One of the things that we continually ask for is the establishment of a permanent roundtable on housing," he said. "Ten or 12 housing experts that work on non-market housing, on market housing, who could hear the new ideas from government and provide advanced feedback."

An advocate with the Tenant Resource Advisory Centre says renters need more notice to look for housing when being forced to move — and the balance between tenants and landlords continues to lean toward landlords.

Robert Patterson, a lawyer at the centre, says B.C. tenant rules should take more than a landlord's intent to actually move in into account and consider other factors.

"What happens to that tenant when their home is taken from them?" said Patterson. "Do they have another place to go? Do they have the means to find another place to go? Those are questions that in our current legal system we don't explore, we don't have to answer and aren't even relevant."

The updated personal-use eviction rules initially took effect on July 18. The exception for home purchasers is set to be effective August 21.