A Vancouver woman who is eight months pregnant says her landlord is threatening to raise the rent once her child has been born.
Joy Maynard and Antoine Moore are expecting their first child any day and have been living in their Vancouver basement suite since April 2021.
They told their landlord earlier in the summer about the pregnancy and Maynard said he informed them that his son is the owner of the house so they need to be talking to his son about these matters.
That’s when they said they were informed that any additional occupant would cost them $600 a month.
“We also told them that my mom is coming to visit. The son said that my mom is going to be considered an occupant,” Maynard said.
“So any rules that they have pertaining to occupants applies to my mom and as well to the baby. So there was a set amount in our release that spoke about new occupants and it was $600 per person. We were hoping $600 for a baby would have seemed ridiculous to everybody, but they were like, ‘No, this is what it says in your lease. It’ll be that for the baby regardless. So there would be a stiff increase in your rent’.”
Maynard said they understood any additional occupant to mean a working adult, not a baby and not a person who is only visiting for three weeks.
“This is kind of harder to take list because we’re just trying to figure out how much, you know like a newborn baby is going to cost,” Moore added.
The couple said if they don’t agree to these increased costs, they have been informed by the son that they will not be able to stay in their home.
“No matter what we brought to him, no matter whatever suggestions or rebuttals, the bottom line is if we don’t pay the $600 for the child per month, he says — specifically, Jan. 1st comes because the baby’s due Jan. 3rd — Jan. 1st comes and you don’t pay the $600 with the baby and you don’t pay the $600 for your mom who’s visiting for three weeks, then we will hand you an eviction notice on Jan. the 2nd, point blank, period,” Maynard said.
“And he said, you can do whatever you want with it. You can dispute it if you want, but that’s what will happen.”
Moore said there was no compassion from their landlord and they are so disappointed this is happening to them at this important time in their lives.
They have been trying to look for other places but the current rental market has made it so difficult to find a new place to live where they can feel comfortable and safe.
B.C.’s Housing Minister, Ravi Kahlon, told Global News Monday that this couple’s landlord should “give himself a head shake” but he is in a legal position to do this.
“I mean, this is the challenge that we have with sometimes landlords and tenants. Most landlords are good people and they operate in a good, transparent way. But this is a situation in which reminds us that we need to continue to find ways to strengthen the rules to ensure that the tenants are protected when they move into new places,” Kahlon said.
“I mean, having a child should not mean that all of a sudden your rent should be going up 300, $400 over a short period of time. And so we’re going to be looking to make changes into the future.”
Kahlon said in this case, he urges the landlord to do the right thing and make an exception for this couple.
“But it’s a reminder that we have to make more protections for tenants because in the environment that we’re in right now, moving when you have a child is simply unacceptable,” Kahlon added
Global News knocked on the landlord’s door Monday but did not receive a response.
Robert Patterson, lawyer and advocate for the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre told Global News that the Residential Tenancy Act does allow for a landlord to include a clause in the tenancy agreement that allows them to increase the rent for an additional occupant.
“The reason that exists is a bit weird,” he said. “So we have provincial laws that regulate rent increases. But we have a clause in the Tenancy Act that says those rules do not apply at all to increases that are for additional occupants as long as there are terms spelling out what those increases can be in the agreement.”
However, Patterson said that clause creates too big a gap for this specific issue.
No rules lay out how much a landlord can increase the rent, for example, he added, and there are no parameters around what constitutes an additional occupant.
“The fact that it’s completely unregulated leaves a massive hole for landlords who take advantage of people who are desperate for housing and getting into an agreement to all kinds of increases for any occupant at all,” Patterson said.
He suggests reading the tenancy agreement carefully before signing it.
“If we’re going to allow rent increases for additional occupancy, there needs to be a cap. It means we need to have more clarity on what an occupant is.”
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