Confusion, anger and 5 minutes to avoid eviction: A day at Quebec's jammed rental tribunal
Number of cases taken to court skyrocket as rental market tightens
Montreal was, in years past, considered a haven for renters. But those days are long gone.
The cost of rent has jumped since the pandemic — and so have disputes between tenants and landlords.
The number of applications filed with Quebec's rental tribunal, known in French as the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL), has skyrocketed. The bulk of those cases have been initiated by landlords.
There were more than 91,000 cases brought forward at the tribunal in 2023-24, an increase of more than 40 per cent over two years.
"This situation has persisted for several years now, but we can notice that it has been exacerbated," said Daniel Villarreal, a Montreal lawyer and expert in tenants' rights, referring to the rental board.
"The situation does not seem to improve and that's something much more structural on a societal level."
Here's a look at how the TAL works — and doesn't — based on a day at its busy offices at Montreal's Olympic Village.
The hearings are public, but names have been withheld to protect people's privacy.
'It's already been two minutes'
The largest tribunal office in Montreal is in the city's east end, on the ground floor of an imposing brutalist tower that once housed Olympic athletes. The waiting room resembles a medical clinic, where people sit waiting, documents in hand.
One day last week, one man brought his two teenage children to translate for him. Another taped photos of overflowing trash onto a poster board to help make the case his building wasn't properly maintained.
The waiting area, painted a drab beige, is lined with doors that open onto smaller rooms where administrative judges preside over their cases.
The busiest hearing room is devoted to complaints filed by landlords regarding unpaid rent. These cases are allotted only five minutes each. In accordance with Quebec law, a tenant three weeks behind in their payment can be evicted.
In a single afternoon, administrative judge Leyka Borno, presiding from behind an elevated desk in a black robe, ran through 32 cases involving unpaid rent. That works out to six or seven cases every half hour.
"I don't have more than five minutes per file. It's already been two minutes," she told a tenant at one point.
These hearings, Borno explained on several occasions, are designed to examine only whether rent has been paid. Any other matters, such as complaints involving the state of the apartment, or allegations of harassment by the landlord, cannot be considered.
Advocates say this setup tends to favour landlords — and makes it difficult for tenants to ensure their point of view is heard.
Cédric Dussault, who works with the tenants' rights group RCLALQ, pointed out that cases of unpaid rent are heard far more quickly than civil cases, which often involve a tenant upset about their living conditions.
In all, 88 per cent of cases at the TAL are brought forward by landlords, he said, basing that figure on a recent TAL report at Quebec's National Assembly.
As it stands, "the main activity of the TAL is to evict tenants," he said.
Payment first
At one hearing, a tenant tried to show Borno a video on his phone of flooding inside his apartment and a hole in his ceiling he said hadn't been fixed since the summer.
"I will stop you right there," Borno said, cutting him off.
The tenant replied: "So, I don't have the right to say anything?"
Borno explained that the hearing was for unpaid rent — and that she didn't have time to hear this more complex allegation. For that, he would need to file an application himself, and pursue their landlord in civil court.
"You still have to pay [the rent], then launch your own legal challenge," she said.
"I don't have money for a lawyer," the man said.
He owed the landlord $1,529.25. The man promised to pay it as he left the room.
These short hearings can also work against landlords, especially individual property owners without the money for a lawyer.
At one point, a landlord grew visibly flustered as he argued his tenant routinely pays late, affecting his credit score.
"We're victims too," he said.
The administrative judge explained the complaint was not relevant to the hearing, which was strictly about whether the rental payments were up to date. She said the landlord would need to file a separate request for a civil case.
Many of the cases, however, are brought forward by large property owners.
A recent investigation by the Journal de Montréal found that a single property owner, CAPREIT, was listed in 1,878 judgments over the past three years.
In one hearing room last week, all but one case regarding unpaid rent involved Akelius Montreal Ltd., another large property owner. It had the fourth-most judgments at the TAL over the same period, according to the report.
Melissa Lemieux, a lawyer and member of the Quebec Landlords Association (APQ), said property owners face their own challenges — and the fact that tenants dispute a small increase in the rent can bog down the system.
"Landlords have mortgages to pay," she said. "Banks do not care if the landlord doesn't get their money from the tenants."
'Extraordinary volume'
The strain on resources is visible at TAL, with a steady stream of people arriving at the offices throughout the day. A security guard is ready to intervene when frustrated tenants raise their voice.
Lemieux said more resources — and better prepared landlords and tenants — would make the process work better.
"If ever a case starts to sound like it's going to take longer, the judge is like, 'we've got to postpone it and hear you in front of another judge," Lemieux said.
"If the TAL were to be able to, you know, have more judges so that way people can have more time and then not have to wait two months to be able to get a hearing, that would be beneficial."
Many say the situation has only gotten worse in the past few months.
Overall, the delay in getting a first hearing before the tribunal climbed slightly from 2.7 to three months between 2023-24 and the year prior.
A spokesperson for the TAL attributed the additional delays to the "extraordinary volume of applications lodged during this period."
"Despite this increase, the average time for a first hearing, all cases included, has been limited to three months thanks to the tribunal's efforts," spokesperson Denis Miron said in an email. The TAL declined an interview request.
The Coalition Avenir Québec government has recognized the strain on the system. In last week's economic update, the government noted the TAL is "facing pressure" and that the number of applications has "increased significantly in recent years."
The CAQ announced a $6.2-million increase over four years for the TAL budget to help it meet the growing demand.
Cost of rent, and everything else, is climbing
Several tenants left their hearings last week promising to quickly find the money to settle the rent — and pay the penalty for their last check bouncing.
Margaret van Nooten, a social rights worker for Project Genesis, said many of the people she represents rely on a modest income to support their family, and struggle each month to pay rent after covering groceries and other expenses.
"It's frightening. It's very worrisome," she said.
Most of the disputes at the TAL involve rent price — the number nearly tripled in two years, from 7,201 to 21,238.
Quebec is often considered to have stronger rent protection than other provinces, many of which don't have the same control mechanisms. But critics say rent control isn't working.
Rents in Montreal went up by an average of 7.7 per cent last year, according to the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, even though the TAL's recommended rental increase was 1.8 per cent (with a potential further increase based on increase in utilities).
Rent climbed even higher — by 10 per cent — in units with a new tenant.
Van Nooten, who has been working with tenants for almost three decades, has noticed a shift toward more aggressive landlords in the last few years.
She said many of her clients face pressure from big property owners, armed with lawyers, to accept a rent increase or leave.
"They can just be ruthless," she said.
"That whole negotiating process has really, really changed. There's so much money to be made in housing."
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
