Six BC Tenancy Questions That Keep Tripping Up Landlords and Property Managers

Disclosure: we build free BC tenancy compliance tools at Fact AI Lab. The rent increase calculator is free, requires no account, and now also computes your latest service date in the same result. The link is also at the bottom.

These six questions cover the spots where the Residential Tenancy Act most often surprises the people applying it - the same trip points our compliance corpus and free tools were built around. No usernames. Situations paraphrased. Every answer is sourced to the Residential Tenancy Act or RTB Policy Guideline 12, with retrieval date, because this area of law changed substantially in August 2024 and older guides still circulate.

"Is the 3-month notice for a rent increase 3 full calendar months, or just 90 days?"

Three full calendar months - not 90 days, and not three months measured however is convenient.

For a rent increase taking effect on June 1, the notice must be received by February 28 (or February 29 in a leap year). Not mailed by February 28 - received by that date. Service by mail adds five deemed days under RTA s.90 (confirmed in RTB Policy Guideline 12 §N, retrieved July 11, 2026 from gov.bc.ca), so if you are mailing the RTB-7, the envelope must leave your hands by February 23 at the latest.

The 90-day shortcut is wrong in two directions. In months shorter than 31 days, 90 days falls short of three full calendar months. And the full-calendar-month calculation counts backward from the effective date, not forward from today.

RTA s.42 is the source; the exact quote is "three full months notice." The 2026 cap is 2.3% (gov.bc.ca, retrieved July 11, 2026); the RTB-7 form is required regardless of whether the proposed amount is at cap or below it.

Corpus receipts: RENT_INCREASE_RULES.noticeMonths (rent-increases.ts), SERVICE_METHODS.mail.deemedDays (service-rules.ts), RTA s.42, GL12 §N.

"My tenant has rented from me for seven years. Can I raise their rent more than 2.3%?"

No. The annual cap applies regardless of tenure, regardless of how far below market the current rent sits.

For 2026, the maximum allowable increase is 2.3% (gov.bc.ca, retrieved July 11, 2026). For 2025 it was 3%. The cap resets each calendar year; a long-term below-market tenancy does not accumulate unused headroom from prior years.

The only path above cap is an Additional Rent Increase (ARI) application to the RTB - available for documented extraordinary cost increases such as property taxes, insurance, or utilities. An ARI is a formal application with supporting evidence, not a unilateral landlord decision, and the RTB decides the amount.

If you want to reset to market rent, the path is a new tenancy with a new tenant. The cap applies for the life of a tenancy.

Corpus receipt: RENT_INCREASE_CAPS[2026] (2.3%), rent-increases.ts, RTA s.42 (cap) and s.43 (ARI).

"I emailed my tenant the RTB-7 because that is how we always communicate. Is that valid service?"

Only if the tenant previously gave written consent for email service - specifically an email address provided as their "address for service" under RTA s.88. An address used for casual communication does not count.

If written consent exists, email service is valid under RTA s.90 with three deemed days added (RTB Policy Guideline 12 §N, retrieved July 11, 2026). Emailed October 25 means deemed received October 28. That date is your start for the three-month backward count.

If written consent does not exist, the notice was not validly served. You need to re-serve by a valid method - in person (same-day receipt), by mail (+5 deemed days), or by email after obtaining written consent - and the three-month window runs from the new deemed-receipt date.

The practical fix is to document an email address for service at lease signing. A clause in the tenancy agreement confirming the email address is an address for service satisfies this requirement.

Corpus receipts: SERVICE_METHODS.email_with_consent (service-rules.ts), RTA s.88-90, GL12 §N.

"I want to move my daughter into my rental unit. What notice do I give, and are there any catches?"

Three months (RTA s.49, form RTB-32L). There are catches.

The form. RTB-32L must be generated through the RTB web portal, not downloaded and filled in locally. This became mandatory June 18, 2025. A locally saved PDF is likely the old version and may be rejected.

The five-unit restriction. This notice type is prohibited in buildings with five or more rental units unless each unit is strata-titled with a different owner. In a six-unit building you own outright, you cannot use RTB-32L to evict a tenant for a family member's occupancy.

Compensation. You must pay the tenant one month's rent before the effective date. Not on the last day, not after - before.

Occupancy requirement. Your daughter must occupy the unit for at least 12 months. If she does not, the former tenant may have grounds for compensation through the RTB.

The dispute window. The tenant has 21 days from deemed receipt to file a dispute. If they dispute on day 21, an RTB hearing is scheduled and the eviction outcome depends on that hearing. Your planning horizon is not "serve by date X" - it is "the unit is uncertain until 21 days after deemed receipt, and potentially longer if the RTB schedules a hearing."

Corpus receipt: END_TENANCY_NOTICES.three_month_landlord_use (end-tenancy-notices.ts), RTA s.49, RTB-32L.

"My tenant is three weeks behind on rent. How quickly can I start the eviction process?"

You can serve a Ten Day Notice to End Tenancy for Unpaid Rent or Utilities (form RTB-30, RTA s.46) as soon as the rent is overdue. The ten-day period starts from deemed receipt of the notice, not from when you served it.

In-person delivery: deemed received the same day. By mail: add five deemed days. Mailed July 1 means deemed received July 6 and effective date July 16 at the earliest.

The tenant has 5 days from deemed receipt to pay the full overdue amount or file a dispute. If they pay in full within 5 days, the notice is void and the tenancy continues - this is the most common outcome for first-time non-payment situations. If they neither pay nor dispute within 5 days, you can apply to the RTB for an Order of Possession. You cannot change the locks or enter without that Order.

The common mistake: mailing the notice and counting ten days from the mailing date. Mail adds five deemed days. Mailed on the first, effective date is the sixteenth at the earliest, not the eleventh.

Corpus receipt: END_TENANCY_NOTICES.ten_day_unpaid_rent (end-tenancy-notices.ts), RTA s.46, RTB-30.

"I gave my tenant a 2-month landlord-use notice in 2024. My tenant says I needed 3 months. Who is right?"

It depends on when the notice was served and deemed received.

Before August 21, 2024, the minimum notice period for landlord or close family member use under RTA s.49 was two months with a 30-day dispute window.

On August 21, 2024, an amendment changed this to three months with a 21-day dispute window. The same amendment changed purchaser-use notices from four months (30-day dispute) to three months (21-day dispute).

If the notice was deemed received before August 21, 2024, two months was correct. If it was served on or after that date, three months is required - and a two-month notice issued after August 21, 2024 is procedurally void regardless of how correct everything else was.

Many property management guides written before this amendment still show the old two-month period. The Perch corpus pins an effectiveFrom date of "2024-08-21" on the three_month_landlord_use entry; the tool cannot return the pre-amendment value for a notice served after that date.

Corpus receipt: END_TENANCY_NOTICES.three_month_landlord_use.effectiveFrom ("2024-08-21"), end-tenancy-notices.ts, RTA s.49.

The deadline arithmetic is where these fail

The patterns above - three full calendar months, five days for mail, deemed-receipt offsets applied to both notice periods and dispute windows - appear in nearly every BC tenancy compliance question because they interact. A correct form, correct amount, and wrong service date produces a void notice. A correct notice period, correct form, and wrong understanding of "deemed receipt" can void a ten-day notice that should have been straightforward.

The rent increase calculator handles this arithmetic free: current rent and proposed rent give a yes or no answer against the annual cap, and adding a planned effective date and service method gives the latest service date, with the s.90 deemed-receipt offsets applied, in the same result.

It runs the same corpus-pinned rules and statute references cited above.