Judge overturns eviction of disabled B.C. tenant after 33 months of partial rent

A B.C. Supreme Court judge has overturned an eviction order against a disabled B.C. tenant whose rent fell short for almost three years because, she says, housing agencies stopped paying their share.

Justice Branch set aside the Residential Tenancy Branch decision and sent the case back for a new look. The judge found the arbitrator failed to explain a key ruling and failed to consider whether the landlord, by accepting the lower payments for 33 months without objection, had given up the right to evict over them.

Rent split three ways

Athena Pranteau moved into the unit in October 2021, placed there through housing programs that help pay her rent. The tenancy agreement with landlord Ken Sam set rent at $2,980 a month.

Pranteau and one of her sons paid about $1,260 a month between them from their disability benefits, which she understood to be their share. The rest was supposed to come from housing agencies. In the arbitration hearing, Pranteau said BC Housing had guaranteed both her and the landlord that he would be paid for as long as she lived there.

Sam said a large part of the rent, about $2,035 a month, had not been paid since October 2023, and put the total owed at about $66,759 over 33 months. He told the arbitrator he had been patient and had given Pranteau time to sort things out with the agencies. "I have not taken any homeless people in -- into my property in the past. And you are the very first one," he said at the hearing, according to the transcript quoted in the judgment.

Pranteau replied that he knew the arrangement came through a homelessness prevention program. "You knew exactly that BC Housing was going to be paying," she said.

Evicted, but no amount owing

In June, the arbitrator upheld Sam's 10-day notice for unpaid rent and granted him an order of possession. It was the tenant's responsibility to make sure the full rent was paid, the arbitrator found, not the landlord's job to chase BC Housing or any other agency.

But the arbitrator also declined to order Pranteau to pay any arrears. Sam had provided no rent ledger or bank statements, so the arbitrator could not determine how much was actually owed and gave him leave to apply again.

The arbitrator also refused to hear Pranteau's own claims, including one for a rent reduction over repairs, services or facilities she said the landlord had not provided. They were dismissed as "not related," with leave to reapply.

What the judge found

Pranteau, who had represented herself before the tenancy branch, brought a judicial review with lawyers. The judge accepted two of her three arguments.

First, the arbitrator never explained why her rent-reduction claim was unrelated to the eviction, and did not invite submissions on it. That mattered, the judge wrote, because the claim "could have materially undermined" the unpaid rent the eviction was based on, particularly when the arbitrator could not say how much rent was owing. "I cannot understand how and why the Arbitrator decided that the petitioner's claims were unrelated," Justice Branch wrote.

Second, the arbitrator should have considered equitable estoppel, a legal principle that can stop a party from enforcing a strict right after leading the other side to believe it would not. The tenant had paid the lower amount for about 33 months, and until the eviction notice the landlord never said he would stop accepting it. Even though Pranteau did not use the legal term, the transcript should have put the arbitrator on notice, the judge found. As a self-represented tenant, she could not be expected to raise such arguments "as crisply or clearly as a represented party could."

The judge rejected her third argument: that an eviction could not stand when the arbitrator could not set the amount owing. The law does not require the exact amount to be fixed before an order of possession, the judge found, and Pranteau effectively admitted she had not paid the contracted rent. Nothing in the tenancy agreement let her pay less on the basis that third parties would cover the difference.

Facing homelessness

Pranteau went straight to court without first asking the tenancy branch to review its own decision, which normally comes first. The judge allowed it given what was at stake. She is disabled, receives income assistance and lives with two sons who both have serious health problems. "An eviction would likely cause all three to face homelessness," the judge wrote.

The eviction decision is set aside and a tenancy branch arbitrator must now reconsider whether the claims should be heard together and whether equitable estoppel applies. The ruling does not decide whether Pranteau owes the money, or whether she can stay. Sam, who represented himself and opposed the petition, was ordered to pay Pranteau's costs.

Source: Pranteau v Sam, 2026 BCSC 2186, Supreme Court of British Columbia, oral reasons for judgment, Nov. 2, 2026.