At a time when a housing crisis is raging, CEGEPs are struggling to recruit students wishing to become municipal building inspectors. Cities in Quebec must therefore reduce their hiring criteria while their inspectors, overwhelmed by permit applications to process, struggle to catch owners who allow the condition of their homes to deteriorate or carry out unauthorized work. Third and final article in a series on a shortage with multiple repercussions.
In addition to facing a shortage of municipal building inspectors, several cities are struggling to hire technicians responsible for evaluating properties on their territory to update their property values. A situation that raises the possibility of cities losing revenue by not raising the value of properties where unpermitted work has taken place, it has been learned The duty.
Under an article of the Municipal Taxation Act, assessors must, “at least every nine years”, validate “the accuracy of the data” on which cities rely to impose property taxes on home owners. and shops. However, many cities are unable to achieve this objective.
This is particularly the case for the City of Longueuil, where the director of evaluation, Marc Lagueux, says he is concerned about the inability of his employees to inspect all the buildings in the city of Montérégie within this deadline due to challenges related to hiring and retaining evaluation technicians.
By email, the City of Longueuil confirms that half of the approximately 70,000 residential assessment units on its territory have “not been subject to a verification of the accuracy of the data” within the time period provided for by law. . However, these inspections are essential to adapt upwards the property value of residential buildings where “renovations without permits” have taken place, notes Mr. Lagueux.
“We agree that, if an owner does work without a permit and his property is assessed [sans la visiter], it is certain that the value on the assessment roll will not reflect its real value,” explains Mr. Lagueux. The City will then receive less property tax revenue from this owner, since the value of their property will be undervalued. “When we do work without a permit, it’s a bit of a form of tax evasion,” summarizes the official.
“It is important to mention that the advent of COVID and the scarcity of qualified personnel forced us to review our ways of doing things and use new property inspection methods,” notes the City of Longueuil. This indicates that it has put in place “alternative means” to physical visits to update the land value of residential and commercial properties on its territory.
In Montreal, for example, the City has decided to compensate for its inability to ensure a “physical visit” of all buildings in the metropolis with other measures, “for example by a postal survey or by other virtual means”. explains public relations specialist Gonzalo Nunez. Owners are notably asked to complete “self-declaration” forms which are used by the City to update the property value of their property, indicates Mr. Nunez.
We are constantly recruiting
Losses difficult to quantify
The City of Montreal also confirms that 49% of buildings with three or fewer dwellings and 33% of those with more have not been inspected for evaluation purposes for at least nine years. In Laval, this percentage, for all types of residential housing combined, amounts to 6.3%.
“We are trying to move as quickly as possible, but with the resources we have, it is not possible,” notes the interim president of the Union of Municipal Civil Servants of Montreal, Patrick Dubois, himself an evaluation technician. land. “The city is losing money because of that,” he says. Some buildings have not been inspected for “20 or 30 years”, the Duty an employee in the City’s Property Assessment Department who requested anonymity for fear of reprisals from his employer. A situation that this source associates with the “crazy turnover” of property assessment technicians, who complain of uncompetitive hours and salaries. “We are constantly recruiting. »
The three cities contacted were unable to provide an estimate of the “financial losses” associated with this situation. “An estimated amount would be hypothetical and incomplete, and would also have to take into account the additional expenses associated with a re-inspection of all buildings within nine years,” explains Gonzalo Nunez.
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Professors Danielle Pilette and Unsal Ozdilek, from the Department of Strategy, Social and Environmental Responsibility at the University of Quebec in Montreal, also agree that these losses are difficult to quantify. “I am inclined to put that into perspective,” underlines Mme Pilette, who recalls that it is the value of land which “appreciates the most” in central districts, independently of the value of the buildings built there.
A profession losing popularity
Contacted by email, four CEGEPs that offer a technical program specializing in real estate evaluation provided data showing a drop in the number of new registrations for this training in recent years. The average number of registrations has been 18 since 2019 for this program at the Notre-Dame-de-Foy Campus, while this number rose to 14 last year.
“It’s a program that remains little known among young people. However, the salary and the placement rates are very attractive,” notes the communications manager of the private college, Jean-François Lebrun, who intends to continue to “promote” this training in order to attract “more people into the domain “.
The number of new students interested in this program has also been in constant decline at Montmorency College, in Laval, since 2019, while in Montreal, the Grasset Institute has not noted any new registrations for this program between fall 2021. and last fall.
“The arrival of COVID, full employment and rising salaries hit us hard for continuing education registrations,” notes the communications manager for this private college, Jean-François Leduc. However, the establishment reports a strong resurgence of interest in this program, in which 21 students registered last winter. This number of registrations increases to 25 in anticipation of next fall, giving employers some hope.