Richmond landlord turns to court after being ordered to pay tenants $50,000 for eviction ‘mistake’

Clerical error or illegal eviction? It’s the $50,000 question.

A Richmond landlord was ordered in February by the residential tenancy branch to pay his tenants a year’s worth of rent, or $49,200, after he ended their tenancy so his father could move into the house on Westminster Highway.

Zhi Yong Xu said he’s fighting the arbitrator’s decision following a hearing that was over in a half-hour and didn’t give him a chance to speak.

Xu hired a lawyer and has launched a judicial review in B.C. Supreme Court in Vancouver of the decision, asking the court to quash the decision because it “ignored relevant evidence and considerations” and is “patently unreasonable.”

“The arbitrator failed to grapple with the real issue and instead rested his decision on a false simplification of the issue — the marking of the wrong box on the (eviction) notice — and awarded the tenants a windfall of nearly $50,000,” it said.