Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner Issues New Guidelines
LandlordBC members will recall that in March 2018 the Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner (OIPC) published recommendations impacting landlords which LandlordBC immediately disputed. We subsequently continued to express our strong concern regarding the findings and recommendations, with the OIPC initially being unresponsive. As we stated in past communication to our members, in LandlordBC’s view what the OIPC recommended in its March 2018 report was unreasonable and negatively impacted our ability as landlords and property managers to properly conduct our business. Furthermore, the consultation with LandlordBC was severely lacking and devoid of procedural fairness. But we persisted with our robust advocacy and when a new Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner were appointed, a respectful and constructive consultation process began.
We are very pleased to advise that after a rather lengthy and in-depth consultation between the OIPC and LandlordBC, new guidelines have been issued. Furthermore, we are delighted that these new guidelines address and largely correct all the inconsistencies LandlordBC had identified. The new guidelines were posted today, September 4, 2019, and can be found on the OIPC website.
LandlordBC wishes to express its appreciation to Commissioner Michael McEvoy and Deputy Commissioner Jeannette Van Den Bulk for their professionalism, and we look forward to continued collaboration with them and their team in the future.
We encourage landlords to review the new guidance on the OIPC website and if you are a LandlordBC member and have questions, please contact our member’s only “Help Line”. We wish to also advise our members we will be making appropriate changes to our proprietary Application for Tenancy form in due course.