A Victoria landlord is trying to gain possession of their rental unit after their tenant disappeared amid rumours he was ‘groping’ people.
This is according to a filing by the B.C. Residential Tenancy Branch, which handles disputes between renters and landlords.
The landlords took action after their tenant stopped paying rent and stopped responding to messages. They had received a message from a neighbour saying that the tenant matched the description they had seen on TV in 2022 about a person wanted on suspicion of “groping” people.
The police also came by to question the tenant in relation to the allegations.
“The landlords feel there are safety issues and risks to females and children in their home and their neighbourhood if the tenant is allowed to stay in the rental unit,” reads the RTB decision.
The landlords also said they were trying to sell their home and rent out the unit until a buyer is found.
The RTB agreed.
“I find the landlords’ lawful right or interest in their property has been adversely affected and jeopardized based on the sequence of events to which the landlords have testified,” said the decision.
The B.C. government says that renters and landlords in B.C. are seeing faster and more efficient residential tenancy dispute resolutions thanks to recent service improvements.
Dispute resolution services at the province’s Residential Tenancy Branch (RTB) have substantially improved in several ways over the last year, said the government, including a 48% reduction in all tenancy dispute hearing wait times, including down to nine weeks for a standard hearing from about 16 weeks a year ago; dispute resolution application processing times take, on average, about 1.4 days compared to nearly 10 days in November 2022; the average wait time for service by phone is now less than seven minutes compared to more than 17 minutes last November; and response times to general emails now take an average of one business day.
These improvements have occurred despite increases in both dispute applications and inquiries. The RTB saw a 10% increase in applications in 2023, averaging 2,005 applications per month, compared to an average of 1,811 per month in 2022.
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