B.C. Appeal Court dismisses appeal by short-term rental owners over restrictions
Victoria short-term rental owners had sought to be exempt from a new law that limits home rentals — or be compensated for their losses
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Dozens of owners of short-term rentals in Victoria who lost a bid in B.C. Supreme Court to be exempted from or compensated for provincial restrictions on their businesses have also lost in a higher court.
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The B.C. Court of Appeal has dismissed an appeal by the Westcoast Association of Property Rights and individual owner Angela Mason, who were seeking relief from the Short-Term Rental Accommodations Act, which came into effect on May 1, 2024.
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The law, designed to protect affordable long-term rental stock, generally prohibits short-term rentals outside of those within an owner’s principal residence.
Mason and the association first asked the Supreme Court for a judicial review, hoping for the court to declare they were entitled to continue to offer short-term rentals or to have the province compensate them for expected losses. Their petition was filed two weeks before the law came into affect.
But both courts agreed there was no role for the courts because the owners were asking for relief before there was any negative effect — that the consequences were hypothetical and request for relief was premature.
Mason, whose name the association used on the petition as a representative owner, said in an interview the law hurts individuals owners like her. And she said it’s no longer necessary because rentals aren’t in short supply in Victoria.
“There’s a glut of rentals right now, all the government had to do was wait for all the new rental housing to be built,” she said.
She also said the courts concluded they couldn’t offer a legal opinion on the law until someone violated it, which meant “until someone breaks the rules, there’s no (legal) precedent to be set, there’s no one to make an example of.”
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“They needed somebody to break the law and suffer damages before they could rule on it,” she said. “Nobody (from the association) has chosen to break the rules.”
Mason said the association will meet next week with a lawyer to discuss any possible next steps as the courts left that door open.
Continuing the legal fight is open to anyone who wants to do it, she said. “It’s not going to be me.”
She said her purchase of a Victoria house as an investment was made possible by the income she earned renting it as an Airbnb. She now rents it from between three to six months, furnished, for about $2,000 a month, which is $800 to $1,000 a month less than her mortgage payments.
At the same time the new restrictions took affect, there was an increase in new purpose-built rentals. In Greater Victoria, the rental vacancy rate rose 5.7 per cent in 2024, according to the CMHC’s rental market report. The city’s vacancy rate was 2.6 per cent in December 2024, up from 1.6 per cent in December 2023, it said.
In December 2025, the Victoria vacancy rate rose to 3.3 per cent, the highest it’s been in more than 25 years, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation. In Vancouver, it was 3.7 per cent in December.
That was due to fewer international migrants and students, a weak labour market for younger people, and rental completions remaining above historical levels, it said.
The Supreme Court judge, in dismissing the petitioners’ request for declaratory relief, concluded that without a constitutional challenge, the legislature had “exclusive authority to enact the laws it sees fit.”
“In my opinion, the chambers judge made no error in concluding that the issue raised by the appellants is hypothetical or speculative and inappropriate for an advisory opinion of the court,” said Appeal Court Justice Barbara Fisher, who wrote the judgment. Chief Justice Leonard Marchand and Justice Peter Edelmann agreed.
The Supreme Court judge also said her conclusion that the petition was premature but didn’t prevent the matters it raised from being appropriately submitted in future, and the Appeal Court agreed.
