Why we built renterfacts.ca

Between the two of us, we’ve been the tenant, the landlord, and the person standing at the Residential Tenancy Branch trying to make a case. That’s a lot of different perspectives on the same paperwork. None of them were easy.

British Columbia has one rental law that covers almost everything: the Residential Tenancy Act. It has rules for every part of a rental. Deposits. Notices. Rent increases. Repairs. Evictions. Disputes. The rules are clear if you can read dense statutory text. Most people can’t read that kind of text, and that’s the problem.

The existing sites pick a side

Existing BC rental-rights resources lean in one direction. Tenant-advocacy groups write for tenants. Landlord associations write for landlords. The government’s own explainer is technical and long, written for people who already speak the language.

Nobody writes from the middle. And nobody writes in plain language.

What both sides share

What we knew from being on both sides is that tenants and landlords share the same problem: the rules exist, the consequences are real, and almost nobody knows the actual details.

A tenant who doesn’t know the 5-day window to dispute a 10-day notice loses the apartment. A landlord who doesn’t know that monetary orders over $35,000 go to Supreme Court files in the wrong place. Both sides pay the price for the same information gap.

The site, in one line

So we built renterfacts.ca. One site that covers every stage of a BC tenancy, in plain language, cited to the Act section by section. Both sides can read it. Neither side gets picked.

Why this fits the way we work

This is the minimum we can do to help. It isn’t revolutionary, the law is public, the statute is free to read, the RTB publishes its decisions. What was missing was someone taking the time to translate it.

That’s the everyday version of: helping one another in a technical register. Plain language over jargon. Human context over bureaucratic framing. A tool a person can actually use, not a showcase for what we built it with.

The site is free. No paywalls, no accounts, no newsletter nag.

Come tell us what’s wrong

If you’ve rented in BC, landlorded in BC, or watched a friend try to get their deposit back after moving out, take a look at renterfacts.ca and tell us what’s confusing. 

The inbox at corrections@renterfacts.ca is quiet and confidential. That’s on purpose.

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Above all, we hope this resource helps someone in need, regardless of which side they sit on.