Vancouver’s illegal rental houses reminiscent of Hong Kong’s coffin apartments

Posted November 9, 2026 8:08 pm

2 min read

2:24 Overcrowded illegal rental homes in Vancouver

A new Vancouver city councillor and former legal advocate for tenants says the discovery that landlords have been fined $90,000 after they subdivided a single-family home into a rooming house operation is sad — but not too surprising.

“The practices that I saw described in this decision are regrettably practices that I have seen elsewhere over the course of my time representing tenants, and then more recently from tenants in the Vancouver Tenants Union who have been organizing in buildings,” Stephanie Smith told Global News.

She said the scale of this house is extreme, but there are situations like this across Vancouver.

An inspection of the home in July 2025 found the house near Commercial Drive had been subdivided into 21 rooms with at least 17 tenants, plus multiple bathrooms and plumbing fixtures were added without permits.

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That August, the City of Vancouver issued an order to vacate.

“The practice (of) subdividing without permits, making unpermitted renovations, making un-permited changes to electrical and plumbing, egress issues, like all of these life safety issues — these are things that I’ve seen in multiple buildings across the city over decades,” Smith added.

Following an investigation, the Residential Tenancy Branch found the landlords did not maintain the rental property in compliance with health, safety and housing standards required by law and failed to complete urgent plumbing and electrical repairs.

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They were ordered to pay $85,000 for the first violation and a $5,000 penalty for the second.

2:20 Owners of East Van property fined thousands for subdividing home into rooming house

The decision showed, however, that the rental home had to the capacity to generate $11,000 a month in revenue for the landlords.

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Smith said the $90,000 fine is a large one, but only represents about eight months of income for the property that’s now listed for sale for $1.4 million.

“I have noted and tenant advocates have noted, that the penalties that can be assigned by the RTB (Residential Tenancy Branch) Compliance and Enforcement Unit are not proportional to the harms that can be done to tenants,” Smith said.

“And when you have a larger landlord who may be breaching bylaws or the Residential Tenancy Act in multiple properties, that can amount to a cost of doing business.”

Simon Fraser University’s city program director, Andy Yan, told Global News the dividing of homes in Vancouver reminds him of Hong Kong’s coffin apartments or home — which are essentially wooden boxes with a single bed.

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“I think that this is a scene that actually is something out of Vancouver’s past from the 1800s, when they used to just stack people, new and young Canadians, into these places,” Yan said.

Yan added this issue highlights the need for local governments to ensure that landlords are not allowed to do these practices and then pay fines as the cost of doing business.