Most rental arguments I hear about are not about whether something is broken. They are about who pays to fix it. BC answers that in the Residential Tenancy Act, and the split is clearer than most people think. If you own a mobile home and rent its site in a park, a different Act applies, and I cover it in manufactured home park repairs in BC. I do a lot of landlord-side repair work across the Lower Mainland, so the line matters to me too. It decides which jobs land on my schedule and how the paperwork has to look.
Landlord vs tenant repair responsibilities under the Act
The rule sits in section 32 of the Residential Tenancy Act. The landlord must keep the rental in a state of repair that meets health, safety and housing standards and suits the unit for living in. The tenant must keep reasonable health, cleanliness and sanitary standards. The tenant must also repair damage caused by their own actions or neglect, or by anyone they let onto the property. The tenant does not have to repair reasonable wear and tear.
The Residential Tenancy Branch fills in the details in Policy Guideline 1, which goes room by room. The lists below come from the Act, that guideline and the province's repairs and maintenance page.
What the landlord is responsible for
- Keeping the unit up to health, safety and housing standards for the whole tenancy
- Structure and building systems: roof, walls, windows, plumbing, heating and electrical
- Appliances supplied with the unit, unless the tenant damaged them
- Anything worn out through normal use and age
- Painting the inside of the unit at reasonable intervals
- Smoke alarms: installing them where required and keeping them working, including new batteries at least once a year
- Servicing the furnace and changing furnace filters
- Emergency repairs such as major leaks, blocked sewer pipes, a dead primary heating system or broken entry locks
What the tenant is responsible for
- Keeping the unit reasonably clean, including wiping scuffs off walls and dusting baseboard heaters
- Telling the landlord about needed repairs in writing
- Repairing damage caused by the tenant, their guests or their pets
- Not disabling smoke alarms, and telling the landlord when one needs a battery or repair
- Replacing light bulbs inside the unit during the tenancy
- Removing garbage and pet waste, unless the agreement says otherwise
The province's repairs page also lists dealing with minor mold on windowsills, tubs and showers as the tenant's job, and says landlords should fix water damage quickly. When a sill has gone soft under the mold, my guide to mould on the window sill covers the cause and the repair.
A tenancy agreement cannot move the landlord's duties onto the tenant. Policy Guideline 1 says a tenant cannot be made to paint the unit or repair the landlord's appliances as a condition of renting. The tenant only pays for painting or repairs when the work is needed because of damage they are responsible for.
Is the landlord responsible for light bulbs, pest control and snow removal?
Light bulbs
Both sides have a part. The landlord makes sure every bulb works on move-in day and replaces bulbs in hallways, laundry rooms and other common areas. The tenant replaces bulbs inside their own unit during the tenancy. If a fixture itself fails, that is a repair, and repairs to fixtures in common areas belong to the landlord.
Pest control
The province says landlords are generally responsible for controlling insect infestations, such as bedbugs. For other pests, such as rodents, it depends on the city. Each municipality's standards of maintenance bylaw decides whether the landlord has to deal with them.
Snow removal and yard work
It depends on the type of home. A tenant in a single-family house is generally responsible for routine yard work, which Policy Guideline 1 says includes cutting grass and clearing snow. The same goes for a townhouse or multi-family tenant who has a yard for their own use. In a multi-unit building, the landlord handles grass, snow and gardens. Bigger jobs such as tree cutting and pruning generally stay with the landlord.
Wear and tear or damage: who pays at move-out?
Policy Guideline 1 defines reasonable wear and tear as natural wearing down from age and weather when the tenant has used the place in a reasonable way. The province lists faded paint, minor scuff marks and worn carpet or tiles as wear and tear. The landlord pays for those. Damage from the tenant, a guest or a pet is the tenant's cost, whether it was on purpose or from neglect.
Nail holes are a common fight. If the tenant hung pictures the way the landlord allowed, the holes are not damage. If there are far too many holes, or large nails, screws or tape left marks, the tenant pays to repair the wall. Under section 37, the tenant has to leave the unit reasonably clean and undamaged, apart from reasonable wear and tear, and hand back all the keys.
Age matters too. Policy Guideline 40 gives a useful life for common building parts. It lists interior paint at 6 years and carpet at 12. When something old gets damaged, an arbitrator can lower the award to match the life it had left. A tenant who ruins a nearly worn-out carpet may not owe the price of a new one.
The deposit follows its own rules. Under section 38, the landlord has 15 days to act on the deposit. The clock starts at the later of the tenancy's end or getting the tenant's forwarding address in writing. By then the landlord must either return it or apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch to claim against it. The landlord can only keep money for damage if the tenant agrees in writing or the Branch orders it. The move-out condition inspection report is the evidence either way, and my tenant turnover checklist explains how that report drives the repair list.
Emergency repairs: what a tenant can do if the landlord does not respond
Section 33 of the Act defines emergency repairs. They must be urgent and needed for someone's health or safety, or to protect the property. They also have to fix one of these problems:
- Major leaks in pipes or the roof
- Damaged or blocked water or sewer pipes or plumbing fixtures
- The primary heating system
- Damaged or broken locks that give access to the unit
- The electrical system
The landlord must post or give the tenant the name and phone number of an emergency contact. If something on that list fails, the tenant must phone that contact at least twice and then give the landlord a reasonable time to act. Only after that can the tenant have the repair done. It must be at a reasonable cost.
To get paid back, the tenant gives the landlord a written account of the repair and a receipt for every amount. The landlord must then reimburse the tenant. If the landlord does not pay, section 33 lets the tenant deduct the amount from rent. That right is gone if the tenant skipped the phone calls, has no receipts, paid more than a reasonable cost, or caused the damage.
Anything not on the emergency list is a regular repair. The tenant asks for it in writing and gives the landlord a reasonable amount of time. If nothing happens, the tenant can apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch for dispute resolution. The Branch can order the repair and award money for the trouble.
Put repair requests in writing
The province tells tenants to request repairs in writing, by email, letter or text, and to keep a copy. That habit protects both sides. It gives a dated record of when the problem was reported and what was asked for. For a landlord, a written trail also shows that an urgent repair was dealt with fast, which matters if a tenant later says it was ignored.
Every job I take gets a written scope before I start, so the price is agreed in advance and the list stays the list.
Want me to take this one on? My page on home repairs covers what the visit includes, what I hand off, and how I price it.
When landlord and tenant disagree
Sometimes the two sides do not agree on who caused the damage or who should pay. Either one can apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch for dispute resolution. Good records carry those hearings: dated written requests, the move-in and move-out condition inspection reports, photos, and itemized invoices that show what was done. I keep the paperwork tidy on every landlord job for that reason, even when nobody expects a dispute.
Where a handyman fits on the landlord side
Most of the landlord list above is the work I do every week: drywall, doors, faucets, fixtures, caulk, and the steady upkeep that keeps a unit to standard between tenants. If you rent out a place near my home base, I take on home repairs in Langley and home repairs in Surrey, plus drywall repair in Surrey when a turnover leaves the walls rough.
Turnovers are where it all piles up, and my tenant turnover checklist covers that scope item by item. The invoice matters as much as the repair, so I wrote up what a strata-ready handyman invoice needs. How I set up accounts, from access notes to one contact for every building, is on the commercial handyman for property managers page.
