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The landlord making a mistake in their application or submissions is unlikely to get the entire thing thrown out. They will often be given an opportunity to correct it, or it may be corrected for them by the RTB if it is something minor like a spelling error or a mathematical mistake.
The Rules of Procedures are more like guidelines. Those experienced with the hearing process, such as lawyers, know what rules can be broken, and there are often no consequences unless the tenant can prove that it negatively impacted them or their ability to respond.
The guidelines are not legislation. They are helpful for determining what was intended and provide additional details, but if it conflicts with the Act or Regulation, the legislation wins over the guidelines.
RTB cases are not precedent setting. A decision one way in the past doesn’t necessarily mean it will be decided the same way in your case. It is intended to leave room for the arbitrator to consider all the information before them, even in complex cases like ARI-C. While arbitrators are supposed to follow similar standards, that is not always the case. That being said, past decisions often include the arbitrator’s rationale, which can be useful when formulating your own argument.
The RTB is bound by the precedents of higher courts, such as the Supreme Court of British Columbia. There are RTB decisions that have been appealed in the past, and those decisions do impact how the RTB decides future cases. Some of these cases, and their impacts, are listed on the resources page.
You can request additional documents from the landlord. If you do so outside of a hearing, the landlord is not strictly required to provide them. However, you can ask the arbitrator (at either a preliminary or adjudicative hearing) to issue an order for the documents. If the arbitrator agrees with your request and issues the order, the landlord is required to provide the documents, if they exist.
Take notes. You’re not allowed to record the hearing, and it can be hard to keep track of everything you need to respond to without some sort of record. It can be useful to team up with a neighbour or friend so that one of you can take notes while the other formulates responses. Shared documents are great for this!
The ability of the tenants to pay the increased rent or the landlord to pay for the expenditures without increasing the rent are generally not a factor in this process. Eligibility is defined in the regulation, and if something is found to be eligible, the arbitrator must grant the increase.
While arbitration is less formal than a trial, there are still aspects that assume knowledge and experience with the arbitration process. These aren’t strictly documented, not even in the Rules of Procedure.
The arguments and evidence of other tenants can impact you. It can be helpful to collaborate with your neighbours to divide work, clarify arguments in advance, and ensure the points you plan to address won’t be too repetitive.
Disclaimer
This site has been created by tenants, for tenants, to help them fight against improper applications and ineligible expenditures. I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. It is provided for informational purposes only, and will always be evolving.
See something that’s incorrect? Is there something that you think should be added? Do you have questions for a fellow tenant? Email me at [email protected]!