Seafield Apartments

Gordon Nelson Ordered to Refund Rents; Case to be Reheard

Today, the Supreme Court of British Columbia overturned the ruling that allowed landlords Gordon Nelson Investments to increase rents at Seafield Apartments by up to 38%.  The case is remitted for rehearing by a different Dispute Resolution Officer at the Residential Tenancy Office.

Furthermore, the decision orders Gordon Nelson Investments to return all of the additional rent it collected as a result of the April 2, 2009 decision.

The Honourable Madam Justice Loo of the BC Supreme Court found that the Residential Tenancy Office’s (RTO) decision awarding the 38% rent increase was “patently unreasonable”.

In our reading of the judgment, the four points used to overrule the RTO decision were:

• That the Dispute Resolution Officer (DRO) “failed to comply with the statutory requirement” by not considering the Tenants’ evidence. Madam Justice wrote: “…the Officer must consider the Tenants’ relevant submissions. It defies common sense to imagine an affected tenant…would make a submission showing that there are rental units that attract higher rents.”
• That the DRO was “patently unreasonable” in awarding the landlord an above normal rent increase when the landlord had only two “comparable” units demonstrating their case. (In contrast, our evidence - which was disregarded - contained scores of comparable units, in some cases even identical, at similar or lower rents). She wrote: “…it is doubtful that s. 23(1)(a) requires merely two comparator units.”
• The DRO made an error of law by basing her analysis on rents before (rather than after) the regular annual rent increase (3.7%) permitted under the law;
• The Justice concluded that “the officer made a patently unreasonable factual error” when the DRO granted the rent increase based on apartments that were not, in fact, comparable to units at the Seafield by her own admission.

Madam Justice concluded on page 19, paragraph 49 of the decision:

“The Officer’s decision of April 2, 2009 must be set aside and the underlying dispute is remitted for rehearing by another dispute Resolution Officer…In addition, the Landlord must refund the Tenants any additional rents paid as a consequence of the Officer’s decision.”

Seafielders are incredibly relieved at this ruling as the second of three phases of the RTO’s rent increase decision was about to take effect in February.  This would have raised rents by another $170 a month for some tenants, who were already paying $170 more as of August 2009.  These increases would have forced many tenants to leave the building, breaking up the Seafield community.

For more background, check out:

• Seafield Tenants Face 73% Rent Increase
• Seafielders Respond to Landlord’s Demand for up to 73% Rent Increase
• Seafield Residents Await Decision in Rent Hike  Case
• Seafielders Unhappy with 38% Rent Increase

Tags: Geographic Rent Increase, Gordon Nelson Investments

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 12th, 2010 at 11:23 pm and is filed under Seafield News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.