Two B.C. landlords whose costs have skyrocketed – due to their variable-rate mortgage – have been allowed to impose huge rent hikes on their tenants to offset their financial losses.
In a recent ruling, an arbitrator with the province’s Residential Tenancy Branch approved increases totalling 23.5 per cent over two years for each of the landlords’ four rental units.
That’s on top of the 3.5 per cent annual increase previously approved by the B.C. government for 2024.
“The landlords experienced dramatic interest rate increases which have made managing the property unsustainable,” reads the ruling, which was published in May.
I’ll be honest, I have zero sympathy for any landlord here. Rent control is necessary to (hopefully) make sure there is housing that people can afford to live in - and acts as a kind of limit to the extraction of an ever-increasing portion of the paychecks of the working class by the landlord class.
If the renter loses the ability to pay for a home, they become homeless. If a landlord loses the ability to pay for a property, they become a renter. Economic conditions changed? How about this: these landlords should sell, and make property prices drop a little, instead of having renters getting kicked onto the street.