B.C. court upholds order for landlord to pay former tenants $41K

This stock image shows a door with an eviction notice on it. (Credit: Shutterstock)

A B.C. Supreme Court justice has upheld an order requiring a landlord to pay his former tenants more than $41,000 and varied a separate order to require the tenants to pay him $112.

Masood Aslam brought both cases before the court on petitions for judicial review of Residential Tenancy Branch decisions involving his former tenants Richard and Patricia Morneau and their daughter Nikita.

Justice Julianne K. Lamb issued rulings on both petitions on Wednesday, and the decisions were published online the following day.

One of the cases involved an RTB decision that found Aslam had failed to follow through on his stated reason for evicting the Morneaus. The RTB arbitrator in that case sided with the former tenants and awarded them $41,380, equivalent to 12 months of their former rent plus the $100 RTB filing fee.

The other case involved an RTB ruling on how much the tenants should have to pay for damage they caused to Aslam’s property. While the arbitrator found that the landlord was entitled to compensation, the award was significantly less than the amount he had asked for, and lower than the total the arbitrator found he owed to the tenants for withholding their security deposit.

Across both cases, Lamb found the RTB decisions to be reasonable, with one small exception that she chose to correct herself rather than remitting the matter back to the RTB.

The eviction case

According to Lamb’s decision in the eviction case, Richard and Patricia entered a tenancy agreement with Aslam in July 2012.

“The rental property was a house that was divided into three suites, identified as the lower suite, the upper suite, and the third suite,” the decision reads. “The tenants’ daughter Nikita Morneau, one of the respondents, lived in one of the suites.”

The decision doesn’t specify where in B.C. the home is located. The case was heard in B.C. Supreme Court in New Westminster.

“On March 2, 2024, the landlord served the tenants with a handwritten notice asking the tenants to vacate the ‘whole house’ by June 30, 2024, because it was needed for a ‘big renovation’ and ‘use of my children,’” Lamb’s decision reads.

The Morneaus moved out on May 1, 2024. A short time later, they applied to the RTB for compensation, alleging that Aslam had not accomplished the stated purpose for the eviction.

In petitioning the court for judicial review of the resulting RTB decision, Aslam argued that the arbitrator had erred in three ways:

• First, “by failing to consider the terms of the tenancy agreement between the parties and in particular the term permitting either party to terminate the tenancy agreement upon two months notice.”
• Second, by “finding the notice was a formal notice to end tenancy” under the Residential Tenancy Act, rather than an informal request
• And third, by describing the rental property as a “residential complex” with three suites rather than a single-family dwelling.

Lamb rejected all three of these arguments, noting that residential tenancies in B.C. are governed by the Residential Tenancy Act regardless of whether the parties use the standard forms for agreements and eviction notices available on the RTB website.

According to the judge, the fact that the tenancy agreement contained a clause saying either party could terminate it with two months’ notice was immaterial. Such a clause “is only enforceable to the extent it complies with Section 44 of the Residential Tenancy Act,” Lamb’s decision notes.

“Section 44 of the Residential Tenancy Act prescribes the ways a tenancy ends,” it reads.

“The arbitrator did not err by failing to consider whether the tenancy agreement allowed the landlord to terminate the tenancy by giving two months’ notice to the tenants. The only real issue for the RTB was whether the tenancy was terminated in a manner consistent with s 44 of the Residential Tenancy Act, which in this case turned on whether the landlord established termination of the tenancy for family use.”

Likewise, whether the notice was formal or informal, the tenancy could only be ended in compliance with the act, rendering Aslam’s second argument moot, according to Lamb.

Finally, the judge reviewed the evidence the arbitrator cited in concluding that there were three suites, rather than a single dwelling, and found that the arbitrator’s conclusion was not “patently unreasonable,” and therefore should not be overturned by the court.

Lamb dismissed Aslam’s petition and awarded court costs to the tenants.

The repairs case

The judge’s decision in the repairs case lays out much of the same background as her decision in the eviction case.

Notably, the decision indicates there was “no evidence” that the parties completed move-in or move-out inspections of the property, as required under the Residential Tenancy Act.

For this reason, when the landlord applied to the RTB for an order requiring the tenants to pay $27,174 to cover the cost of repairs to the property, the arbitrator concluded that the tenants were entitled to a return of double their damage deposit.

The arbitrator reached this conclusion despite the fact that the parties had agreed by text message that Aslam could keep the damage deposit, according to Lamb’s decision.

As for Aslam’s main application, the arbitrator found some of the claimed expenses justified and rejected others, including his claim for “$16,558 spent on labour for renovations.”

“The landlord failed to provide a breakdown of the renovation invoice to show what was spent to repair damages caused by the tenancy as compared to the landlord’s planned renovation,” the court decision reads, summarizing the RTB arbitrator’s rationale.

Ultimately, the RTB arbitrator awarded Aslam $2441.95, plus his $100 filing fee. After accounting for the double damage deposit owed to the tenants, however, the arbitrator ordered Aslam to pay the Morneaus a total of $196.62.

In his petition for judicial review, the landlord argued that the arbitrator had provided insufficient reasons for rejecting his claims, failed to adequately address the parties’ agreements and admissions, failed to meaningfully consider material evidence and reached conclusions that were not rationally connected to the evidence on record.

Again, Lamb disagreed with these arguments.

“In this case, the landlord is not content with the arbitrator’s award and asks the court to reweigh the evidence that was before the RTB arbitrator in order to reach a different conclusion,” Lamb’s decision reads.

“This is not the court’s function on judicial review. Unless the decision is patently unreasonable, the court owes deference to the arbitrator’s findings.”

Lamb identified only one area where the arbitrator’s decision “does not accord with reason,” which involved the replacement of doors.

“The landlord replaced five doors at a cost of $1,352,” the decision explains.

“The arbitrator found the doors had 10 per cent of their useful life remaining and awarded $135.20 for door replacement. However, the tenants offered to take $390 from the damage deposit to pay for three doors that were damaged. Although the arbitrator noted the tenants’ concession … the arbitrator failed to account for the tenants’ acknowledgment of damages owed by them for damage to three doors when the arbitrator awarded compensation to the landlord for doors.”

Lamb calculated that the tenants ought to owe Aslam $444.08 for the door replacement, a total representing the $390 they promised, plus $54.08 for 10 per cent of the other two doors.

After factoring this change into the amount awarded to Aslam by the arbitrator, Lamb concluded that the Morneaus should pay him $112.26, rather than him having to pay them $196.62.

“Success on this petition was mixed,” the decision concludes. “The vast majority of the issues raised by the landlord had no merit. However, the landlord succeeded in having one component of the monetary award varied. In the circumstances, the parties shall bear their own costs.”