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.
As a renter, this is deeply disturbing. Their rent is going up 7.7x the previously stated legal limit so that “Two B.C. landlords” who didn’t properly anticipate the consequences of their borrowing can be bailed out of financial losses?! WTF are these “two B.C. landlords”? Corporations, probably, right? Modern-day capitalism is such a fucking grift: if you’re not rich, you’re on your own; if you’re rich, you get bailed out. The renters did nothing wrong here: they were fiscally responsible. But the laws will be bent to extract (steal) unforeseen amounts from them in order to bail out wealthier people who chose to take on the risk they did to satisfy their greed. If you’re not rich, standing on your own two feet isn’t good enough. If you are rich, don’t worry about standing on your own two feet–keep taking on risk to make more money and we’ll protect you if you incur losses
I was always told landlords deserve to extract profit from the economy for nothing because of the risk they take on. Yet time after time it seems like they can’t possibly tolerate any risk at all.