B.C.’s housing minister is hinting at changes to the Tenancy Act after a story Global News shared about a Vancouver couple facing a rent hike when their baby arrives.
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’.”
In response, Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said the landlord should “give his head a shake” and is now indicating legislative changes could be coming.
“We know the majority of landlords are excellent, we know the majority of renters are fantastic, and what we have is a system where on the ends of a spectrum we have people who abuse the system,” he said.
“We provided some flexibility for landlords to ensure if they have a caretaker coming in that they have the ability to move people in, and yet we have example after example of landlords that are abusing that system. so more needs to be done.”
Kahlon said a change would ensure landlords cannot raise the rent for an additional tenant under 18 years old.