As a roommate in a rental unit, how much notice am I entitled to get on being evicted?

Sorry to hear about the abrupt turn in your rental situation.  

As explained by the Tenant Resource & Advisory Centre, a roommate who rents from a tenant who lives in the rental unit is not protected by the main law protecting tenants in BC. So the eviction notice rules spelled out there don’t apply. 

If you agreed, formally or informally

What matters is what the two of you agreed to. Perhaps you had a formal roommate agreement (such as one using this template). Or maybe there’s a string of emails or text messages discussing the arrangement. Even an oral agreement is a valid contract. 

Consider what evidence you have for the expectations you brought to the arrangement. Judges (or tribunal members) will be looking to understand the intention of the parties. What did you think the arrangement would be? Is this a “friends sharing the rent” arrangement? If so, there’s usually the expectation that what happens to the tenant, happens to the roommate. Or is it purely a financial arrangement? If you pay “rent” as a roommate on a weekly basis, for example, this might be an argument that reasonable notice would only be a week.  

If there was no agreement

But if you never agreed (in advance) on what happens if one of you wants out of the living arrangement, then the legal principle of reasonable notice applies. That is, each party must give the other reasonable notice to end it. 

You can look to decisions from a court or tribunal for guidance on what’s considered reasonable. In this decision and this one, the Civil Resolution Tribunal (which handles disputes under $5,000) decided that one month was reasonable notice to end a roommate arrangement. Other decisions have found that shorter notice periods were unreasonable: one day in this case and seven days in this one. You can find more decisions by this tribunal on this website. 

One of the themes in the tribunal decisions is the importance of treating each other respectfully. Putting things in writing at each stage is one way to do that. And it helps prove your position if you decide to take legal action.