Two days after a blaze at a private Rockland boarding house displaced 18 people, the property managers asked tenants to sign waivers releasing the landlords and owners from any personal property claims.
“We presented the release to see how many people would sign it,” said Dale Schuss, president of Randall North Real Estate Services Inc. “It was an insurance company directive.”
About half of the 18 people displaced after the fire signed.
“I find this is absolutely appalling for one thing, but in my line of work, this is typical landlord behaviour in that they want to exonerate themselves from everything,” said Russ Godfrey, Victoria’s representative for the Tenant Resource and Advisory Centre.
The landlords don’t have legal responsibility for any of a tenant’s loss unless the landlord is proven negligent in complying with the Residential Tenancy Act in maintaining health, housing and safety standards, Godfrey said.
“If the landlord didn’t comply … then that’s negligent and then the people would be able to go after the owner for all loss, but they’d have to be able to prove negligence.”
To prove negligence, tenants would have to prove the landlords ignored tenants’ safety concerns or the municipality neglected to follow through on bylaw infractions, Godfrey said.
Tenants were presented with the release when they came to collect their belongings on June 27 between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m., Schuss said. It was not a pre-condition to re-enter the house, he added.
“No enforcement was done on that,” Schuss said. “There was no intimidation or anything.”
The waiver reads: “I [the undersigned] hereby and forever release RTR Properties and Randall North Real Estate Services Inc. for any claims pertaining to my personal items left behind at 1114 Rockland Ave., Victoria, B.C. I have had the opportunity to claim and remove my items or my items are damaged severely or inaccessible and I have no further interest in them.”
B.C. Registry Services shows the principals of RTR Properties are radiologists Robert A. Koopmans and Brad Halkier, and periodontist Todd Jones.
Schuss said in an earlier interview that house was a “wet house” for people who drink, that the tenants were hard on the buildings and that renovations and repairs didn’t last long.
However, a handful of longer-term renters in the house say they complained that too many people with drug and alcohol addictions and clients of Seven Oaks — for adults with severe and chronic mental illness — were living in the building without adequate supervision and that the building was falling into disrepair.
Mental health patients were taking their medication with alcohol and were regularly falling asleep or in a stupor while smoking cigarettes, tenants said.
Blaming the tenants for that behaviour is not fair, Godfrey said. The landlords of a private residence have a choice who they rent to and whether the building is designated smoking or not, Godfrey said.
As for the waiver signed by eight tenants, it is not enforceable, Godfrey said.
