The soaring prices on the real estate market have made the situation of many tenants more precarious, in Montreal as elsewhere in Quebec, to face various eviction tactics, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic. To keep their housing affordable, more and more tenants are coming together and turning to the courts. A look back at a year marked by the housing crisis.
From Sherbrooke to Trois-Rivières, via Drummondville and all the districts of Montreal, not a week has gone by without the journalists of the Duty be contacted by tenants fearing eviction.
The stories have of course varied; but certain approaches were repeated from building to building. Between the carrot and the stick, landlords sought sometimes to have an assignment of lease signed by offering compensation, sometimes to force tenants to leave by undertaking very disturbing renovations. Others have undertaken to convert rental units into undivided co-ownership, exploiting the limits of the regulations in certain boroughs of Montreal.
A great momentum in the real estate market partly explains the upward pressure on rental prices. After having collected more than 3,000 advertisements, our team noted, for example, that the average rent in certain areas of Montreal such as Verdun and the South-West had jumped by 14% between 2019 and 2020.
The bottom line in figures
But concretely, were there more evictions of tenants in 2021? Still difficult to establish. In a report published in mid-December, the Regroupement des committees logement et associations de tenantes du Québec (RCLALQ) reported a 46% increase in calls recorded by its members from tenants threatened with eviction or a repossession of housing.
The Rosemont Housing Committee, for example, argued last May that at least 18 residential buildings were threatened with eviction in the neighborhood.
Data from the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL) provided to the Duty are colored by a ban on eviction of tenants, effective between March and July 2020. Evictions for expansion, subdivision or change of use presented to the TAL have thus decreased by 34% in 2020-2021, compared to l ‘last year.
This count is not an exhaustive portrait of reality: cases can only be counted from the moment a tenant or owner applies to this court, therefore in the event of a dispute or question to be decided. The data provided also ends on February 28.
The same goes for takeovers: more and more tenants are refusing them, which has increased the number of these cases by 33% before the TAL in the last year. An owner can only repossess a home for himself, or to accommodate a parent or a child, a former spouse or another member of his family whom he supports. Could these be evictions disguised as takeovers?
Here again, the points of view clash. The general manager of the Corporation of the property owners of Quebec (CORPIQ), Benoit Ste-Marie, rather called to remain flexible as for the expansions and the takeovers to “not drive families” of the big cities.
“What is certain is that we talk more about it,” said Martin Gallié, professor at UQAM and specialist in housing law. He notes that evictions have occupied a particularly important place in the media this year, in the context of the health crisis.
Mobilization in response to the crisis
In recent years, more and more tenants have organized themselves so as not to leave their living environment in a context where affordable rental housing is increasingly scarce.
Many have tried, for example, to assign their lease to a future occupant in order to maintain the price of the rent. However, this approach is not without obstacles, even if an owner cannot refuse it without “serious” reasons under the Civil Code of Quebec.
“It’s so difficult to find affordable housing today that tenants have no choice but to defend themselves,” raises lawyer Alexandre B. Romano, who represents the majority of tenants at Manoir Lafontaine, threatened with eviction in the Plateau-Mont-Royal borough.
Several tenants, like those of Manoir Lafontaine, are joining forces to have more chances of winning their case in court. This is particularly the case of tenants of businessman Giancarlo Bellini, who will have to defend before the Superior Court the right to remain in their accommodation. Mr. Bellini, for his part, wants to destroy four buildings to turn it into a three-storey real estate project in Rosemont – La Petite-Patrie.
Elsewhere, in Sherbrooke, tenants united to resist pressure from a manager who was trying to get them to terminate their lease. Eight neighbors in solidarity with rue Malouin had noted with dismay that they were preparing to suffer the same fate as the buildings opposite, “emptied” by their owner, Tristan Desautels.
“Knowing that we will end up in another neighborhood or in more expensive accommodation [si on est évincé], I think that explains why there is more mobilization [des locataires], which is quite normal, ”adds Mr. Romano.
At the same time, the profits that can be made from tenant evictions in order to create condominiums or renovate housing to rent it more expensive are increasingly attractive to owners, says the lawyer. Rapid resales of properties, commonly referred to as flips, are also more popular than ever in the greater Montreal area.
Training courses for real estate investors are also increasing, a coaching to sniff out real estate gains, as several followers have explained to Duty last April.
“This is the new trendy investment because there is money to be made […], it’s a gold rush ”, underlines the lawyer and lecturer at UQAM in housing law Daniel Crespo Villarreal.