Many residents of retirement homes in British Columbia are facing illegal rent increases, the province’s seniors’ advocate says.
In a report released Thursday, Dan Levitt called for increased protections for the 30,000 people who live in retirement homes in the province.
“Calls to my office from seniors who are facing unlawful rent increases have more than doubled in the last year,” the provincially appointed seniors advocate said in a statement.
The report, titled Forgotten Rights: Seniors Not Afforded Equal Rent Protection, details how some landlords try to ignore the Residential Tenancy Act (RTA) and illegally raise the annual housing costs of their senior tenants by as much as 24 per cent.
Levitt said his investigation into the issue found that some landlords tell their tenants the RTA and its rules on rent increases do not apply to their living situation, or that the rules only apply to rent and not to monthly fees for meals and cleaning.
“The law is very clear that anything a tenant is required to pay to the landlord as part of their tenancy, whether it is for meals or a parking spot, is included as part of the rent and protected by the annual allowable rent increase,” Levitt said.
“If the landlord raises any fees beyond the regulated amount, the law says tenants must be able to opt out of those fees or they form part of the tenancy agreement and are subject to cost protections.”
Calls for change
Levitt found some seniors, in the face of rent and service costs they can’t afford, have tried to opt out of monthly service fees for meals and cleaning. However, their landlords have claimed that isn’t allowed and have tried to evict them.
Levitt’s office has concluded that the existing processes for enforcing the RTA are ineffective.
According to the report, seniors are then left to challenge their landlords — often large companies — at the Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB).
In these situations the seniors are at a disadvantage because they often cannot afford a lawyer and, due to their age, are less likely to have the mental, emotional, technological and research skills to adequately represent themselves at a hearing.
Recommendations
Two recommendations stem from Levitt’s report.
First, he is calling on the province to make sure the RTB consistently recognizes that seniors living in rental units, as well as those in units with monthly service fees, are covered by the RTA and its cost-increase rules.
Second, he wants the province to “review the practices, capacity and expertise of the RTB to address the … the intimidation and vulnerability many seniors feel when trying to address legitimate residential tenancy issues” with the RTB and their landlords.
CBC News has contacted the Ministry of Housing, the Ministry of Health, the Canada Landlords Association and the British Columbia Seniors Living Association for comment.