“Toothless” regulations are failing to protect B.C. landlords and tenants from those who repeatedly break the law, said Vancouver West MLA Spencer Chandra Herbert.

Chandra Herbert, who obtained emails between Residential Tenancy Branch staff through a freedom of information request, said the information shows the RTB has taken a “worst of the worst” approach to applying the administrative penalty framework, and “has not been particularly successful in doing so.”

In the past seven years, there has only been one administrative penalty issued — a $115,000 fine levied in 2012 against notorious landlord Gurdyal Singh Sahota, who was criticized by the tenants of the 31-unit Kwantlen Park Manor in Surrey for failing to fix structural damage and mould in the building.

The penalty was considered precedent setting because it was the first administered under the Residential Tenancy Act. But even though the penalty “sounded like an eye-popping one,” Chandra Herbert said, the provincial government rescinded it after reaching an agreement with the landlord to repair the building in lieu of paying the fine.

“The law says you have to have a building in good working order that does not put peoples’ lives at risk,” Chandra Herbert said. “If there’s no active penalty for repeatedly breaking the law, then why is the law there at all?”

Provisions for administrative penalties were provided in the Residential Tenancy Act in 2006 but were not used until two years later when an administrative penalty policy guideline was developed. It was drafted by the Residential Tenancy Board in response to a request by the housing minister after the roof of a Vancouver residential building collapsed.

But the emails obtained by Chandra Herbert suggest the measures have not deterred repeat offenders — both landlords and tenants — because they aren’t issued or enforced.

“We don’t need a toothless penalty for a few bad apples. We need legislative reform,” said Sharon Isaak, who fought her own renoviction case and now advocates for seniors and others. “There really is no deterrence, there’s no impunity.”

Isaak, who is still living in her apartment in Vancouver’s West End, said she went through years of stress going through the process and “in the end it didn’t work. It just grinds you up and spits you out,” she said.

“People were losing their homes. When you get a notice, you know it’s going to be a long and difficult process to go through and challenge it. The tenants need more protection against this mass displacement.”

In question period Thursday, Chandra Herbert cited the information he obtained, which suggested Residential Tenancy Branch staff had reported there were “no clear guidelines, no legal authority, not enough people to even go after those breaking the law.”

To address the problem, the RTB needs a “concise, clear and common understanding of the current challenges in administering administrative penalties,” reads an introduction to a draft review.

“Administrative penalties are complaint based and random in that there are no clear guidelines for when and to what situations they should be applied,” the introduction states. “Also RTB does not have legal authority to inspect buildings as part of issuing administrative penalties, nor does it have expertise or human resource capacity to conduct inspections.”

Some residents say they have even fewer resources.