The Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) oversees disputes between renters and landlords in BC. They also produce a variety of information resources that your patrons can use when trying to learn more about their residential tenancy problems. These include:
- Information sheets for during a tenancy and dispute resolution, which provide brief overviews of topics such as rent during tenancies, deposits, pets, air conditioning in rental units, ending a tenancy for renovations, enforcing a monetary order from the RTB, and more. For quick overviews of basic tenancy information, check out the info sheets Resources for Renters and Resorces for Landlords. Note that several of these information sheets are available in multiple languages, including Punjabi, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, and French. Each infosheet is available in PDF and can be easily printed for patrons to take home with them.
- Templates for landlords and tenants to use when communicating with each other, including witness statements for those involved in tenancy disputes at the RTB, warning letters if something occurs during a tenancy, request for repairs, and incident reports to help record events. All templates are available in Word and can be easily downloaded, edited, and printed.
- An e-learning module offered in partnership with Kelowna Community Resources, which provides newcomers to BC with tenancy information.
- A collection of helpful referrals and resources for both tenants and landlords to receive more information and/or legal help.
- Tenancy calculators, which can be used by both landlords and tenants to find out more about rent, deposits, and ending tenancies. These calculators can help your patrons learn about things such as:
- When and how much the rent can be increased: calculate when a landlord can increase a tenant’s rent and the maximum amount allowed.
- Deposit interest calculator: to find out how much interest is owed on a security or pet damage deposit at the end of a tenancy.
- Disputing a notice to end tenancy: provides timelines of when a tenant must file for dispute resolution to dispute an eviction, based on which Notice to End Tenancy they received.
Your patrons can also contact the RTB call centre from anywhere in BC to learn more about their rights, responsibilities, and dispute resolution. Immediate, real-time interpretation is available in more than 200 languages, including Cantonese, Punjabi, Farsi, French, and Spanish. To contact the RTB, they can:
- Call toll-free at 1-800-665-8779
- Call within the Lower Mainland: 604-660-1020
- Call in the Victoria area: 250-387-1602
- Email the RTB at HSRTO@gov.bc.ca
This article is a LawMatters Blog post written for current awareness at the time of publishing. Please check the publication date as some information may have changed since then.