There are so many benefits to living in a cool place like Montreal. The culture is rich, the food is spectacular and the nightlife is amazing.
From your base in North America’s premier French city, you can explore Quebec on the weekends, and take short trips to Ontario or even New England. For breakfast you have a choice of exquisite croissants or Tim Hortons. On weekends you can trek up Mount Royal. There’s always something to do, something to see: music, art, performances and interesting people.
The inevitable downside is that there are many others who would love to enjoy this same lifestyle. In economic terms that means greater demand for a limited housing supply.
Over many decades, Reiss Management CEO Ami Reiss has studied the trends and noticed some dramatic changes. Once-affordable Montreal neighborhoods are now pricey, with residents paying extremely high proportions of income for comfortable apartments in prime locations.
“When I grew up here, the price of housing in Montreal wasn’t even a topic of conversation,” he says. “In many ways the city was an undiscovered gem, or a secret that we all closely guarded. We really didn’t want word to get out about this wonderful quality of life that was accessible to everyone from factory workers to fashion designers.”
As supply began to fall behind the swelling demand, the imbalance has led to greater involvement in the rental market by governments on all levels, and the creation of new protections for current or prospective renters.
To meet these challenges, McGill University, with its central location in downtown Montreal, put together a guide to tenant rights. Its insights are valuable for anyone seeking to navigate the complexities of the rental market in Montreal, Laval and the other popular neighborhoods in the metropolitan area.
The guide begins with an assurance that the law prevents landlords from discriminating on the basis of a wide range of protected categories, including: race, color, sex, gender identity or expression, pregnancy, sexual orientation, civil status, age, religion, political convictions, language, ethnic or national origins, social condition, and disability. This guarantee is enforced by Quebec’s Commissions des droits de la personne et des droits de la jeunesse (CDPDJ).
Beyond these specific categories, the law provides strong protections for a renter’s privacy, preventing a landlord from accessing a unit without permission, unless a tenant has given notice of an intent to vacate the unit.
Eviction is also tightly regulated, and owners of a rental unit must follow a detailed list of steps for any eviction to be valid. Landlords may “divide a dwelling, enlarge it substantially or change its destination” with proper notice. However, the notice required may be as long as six months in advance, depending on the length of the lease.
Tenants over 70 years old who’ve lived in a unit for a decade or more and qualify for low-income housing receive special protections. Renovations or repairs are allowed to begin with 10-days’ notice, but cannot be used as an excuse to raise the rent.
In general, the law seeks to provide tenants with the assurance of stability. The guide notes: “The general rule in Quebec is the ‘right to maintain occupancy,’ meaning that lessees can stay for the term of their lease as long as they honor the conditions of the lease.”
Renters are also guaranteed a unit that is in habitable condition, which includes heat in the winter of at least 21℃. Lacking a proper living environment, tenants have the right to withhold rent in some cases.
Disputes often escalate to a provincial tribunal known as the Administrative Housing Tribunal (Tribunal administratif du logement, or TAL). That is the forum where “any lessee who feels that the dwelling, after possession, is unsanitary may apply, with evidence, to terminate the lease or order the lessor to ‘carry out work’ to make the property habitable.” The minimum fine for a landlord who loses a TAL case is $10,000.
“With all of these statutory protections, many tenants are surprised that neither provincial law nor local ordinances put a cap on rent increases,” notes Reiss Management CEO Ami Reiss. “And at the end of the day, that is the number one issue for most renters.
According to the TAL: “At the time of the renewal of the lease, a lessor is free to ask for a rent increase that he deems just and reasonable in his notice that he remits to his lessee. The lessee has the right to accept or to refuse that increase within one month following the receipt of the lessor’s notice.”
A tenant does have a right to dispute a rent increase; and if the case is heard by the TAL the landlord will need to justify the new rent payment by showing the tribunal revenues and expenses for the building.
For many Montreal renters, these complexities in the law seem like oversights that have allowed rents to soar and some landlords to engage in practices such as the so-called “renoviction,” by which tenants can be displaced during a remodeling or upgrade of a unit.
Ami Reiss doesn’t foresee these loopholes being plugged any time soon. “Whatever policymakers decide, the reality in Montreal is that there is limited supply in the face of huge demand from people who want to live and rent here,” he says.
“Given restrictive zoning and permitting, plus the paucity of new construction projects in the metropolitan area, the government cannot just mandate affordability. The market will always prevail.”
