B.C. government sues buyers of affordable housing in Victoria, alleging they don't meet terms of agreement

The B.C. government is cracking down on more than a dozen Victoria condo owners, taking five of them to court, over allegations they’ve abused a housing affordability agreement.

Homeowners who bought into the Vivid at the Yates building on Johnson Street in Victoria had to pledge that their household income was less than $150,000 per year and that they would live in their unit for at least two years in exchange for sale prices that were below market value.

But B.C.’s housing minister says not all of the buyers acted in good faith.

“It’s outrageous that people would – investors would – take advantage of housing that’s being made available for people who are struggling to find housing in our communities,” Housing Minister Ravi Kahlon said Tuesday. “We do audit every single project that we have and that’s why these individuals were caught.”

Kahlon says eight owners have returned strata units for the price they paid. BC Housing is taking five others to court.

In one of the notices of civil claim, the defendant is accused of already owning six homes in the B.C. capital region valued at more than $1 million each.

“When are people taking advantage of the housing market so much that we have to look at things like criminal prosecutions?” asks the Together Against Poverty Society’s executive director Douglas King.

The province says it started its investigation in 2021, which is when construction was completed on the downtown site.

One building unit owner who CTV News spoke with says he noticed an oddity down the hall early into the building’s life.

“All I can say is if they were there, I never saw them. And they left a notice on their doorstep for at least two months when we first moved in,” says David Warburton. “Someone does live in that unit now, I can say fairly certainly.”

Since the audit, the housing minister says stronger safeguards have been put in place, including that buyers must provide "two years of financial records, must be a primary residence, must live in the province for more than 12 months and a whole host of other measures like covenants on the property."

The province gave Chard Development a $53-million low-interest loan to build the 135-unit condominium project so it would lead to below-market prices on the sale of the units.

TAPS, which is a non-profit anti-poverty group, says the project shows why rental controls would help more people afford a home.

“I think BC Housing can say they fixed the problem now, but you do really have to wonder how this happened in the first place,” says King.