CondoAdvisory Blog

There are always thorny issues when it comes to relations between Landlords, Tenants, and the Residential Tenancy Board.

As is pointed out in an article at Straight.com , The Law states that in order for a Landlord to be able to make a claim against the Damage deposit, and any further claims they must have a Move in and Move out inspection filled out in writing and acknowledged by the tenant and landlord. It would seem to be common sense, just like when you rent a car, if there is no inspection done when you pick it up then there is going to be trouble when you bring it back if there is damage.

To protect yourself as a tenant, and a landlord you must do these things and you must get it in writing.

As the case discussed in the Straight.com article points out, regardless of the law, cases can go either way. In this case there was no inspection reports filled out but the landlord was able to make a successful claim against the tenant. Now this hardly seems fair but if there were reports done there would not have been a problem, all would have been in writing and there would have been nothing to dispute.

This case also points out that the Residential Tenancy Boars is inconsistent so you better make sure you protect yourself.

Now in this case I find it interesting that the tenants do not seem to be denying that they caused damage, or at least some, so I can see where the Board may have felt they were just trying to take advantage of the law and the fact that no reports were taken, in fact it seems that they asked the Board before moving out if the fact that there was no report would mean that they would get their damage deposit back. What would they ask this unless they felt there was a reason for the landlord to keep it? In fairness, I don not know any of the details here so I cannot place blame on anyone. But certainly if you do not protect yourself you are open to people taking advantage of you.

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