The BC Government has set the rental increase limit for 2025 to 3%. This is down 0.5% from the previous years 3.5%.
How Often Can a Landlord Raise the Rent
A Landlord can only increase rent if it has been 12 months since:
- Rent was set at the beginning of the tenancy or
- Rent was last legally increase during an existing tenancy.Historical increases do not account for hiked interest rates and inflation. In 2023 the annual increase was 2%, in 2022 it was 1.5%. Don’t forget in 2021 we had a freeze to 0% during the pandemic. Whether or not this helped is yet to be determined ( or it already has been)
Changes to Residential Tenancy Rules
In 2024 we saw changes to rules with respect to short-term rentals and requirements by landlords for “good faith evictions”. For short term rentals it is not required that you must reside in the property ( primary residence) in order to run a short term rental ( see the article for details). There are also rules and guidelines when evicting a tenant and heftier consequences for bad faith evictions.