By Morgan Lowrie
Metropolis council in March handed a brand new bylaw that may permit individuals to lease their principal residences for intervals of 31 days or lessonly throughout peak vacationer season, between June 10 and Sept. 10. They need to additionally receive a $300 allow from the town and meet earlier necessities to register with the province.
Full-time Airbnb models run by business enterprises are nonetheless allowed in components of the town, however are restricted to a couple streets and areas.
Despina Sourias, a metropolis councillor in command of housing, stated earlier guidelines had been laborious to implement as a result of they allowed some property house owners to keep away from getting fined by stating a rental property was their important residence.
The brand new guidelines, she stated, will shift the burden of proof onto itemizing house owners as a substitute of inspectors.
“Earlier than it was like, now we have to exit and catch individuals, we’ve acquired to roam the streets,” she stated in a telephone interview.
Banning short-term leases in principal residences for 9 months a yr makes issuing fines a lot simpler, Sourias stated. “You don’t have your allow, you get a ticket,” she stated. “Should you’re doing it exterior the time that you simply’re allowed to do it, you get a ticket.”
The brand new guidelines are the subsequent step in a progressive crackdown throughout the province that started after seven individuals died in a fireplace in an Previous Montreal constructing in March 2023. Six of the victims had been staying in Airbnb leases, which the mayor confirmed weren’t allowed in that a part of the town.
After the hearth, the provincial authorities tabled new laws requiring platforms like Airbnb to solely show advertisements that embody a tourism licence quantity and expiry date. The town additionally employed a squad of inspectors to attempt to crack down.
Earlier than the brand new bylaw, it was simpler for individuals to lease their important residences for brief intervals, resembling throughout a trip.
That led some individuals to make use of totally different schemes to falsely declare a full-time rental as a principal residence, and forcing inspectors into prolonged investigations to show in any other case, the town stated.
Montreal’s mayor stated in January that regardless of the provincial regulation, greater than half of the 4,000 models on short-term rental platforms didn’t adjust to the foundations.
The brand new guidelines have acquired pushback from the province’s tourism division, in addition to from platforms resembling Airbnb, who declare that they’ll damage the town’s economic system and do little to enhance housing affordability.
Alex Howell, Airbnb’s coverage lead from Canada, referred to as on the town to reverse what she referred to as an “excessive and short-sighted” rule change.
“This poorly thought-out resolution will drive up lodge costs and make journey costlier for Quebecers – practically 140,000 of whom stayed in an Airbnb in Montreal final yr – and weakens Montreal’s means to draw guests for main occasions that gas tourism all year long,” she stated in an announcement.
Saif Yousif, a property supervisor for Park Place Properties, believes the brand new guidelines are overly restrictive. Yousif manages about 80 short-term leases within the Montreal and Mont-Tremblant areas, together with many owned by purchasers wish to lease their houses once they’re travelling.
Yousif feels the present guidelines had been already strict sufficient to forestall individuals from falsely claiming an funding property as a principal residence. The regulation, he stated “makes it troublesome for (householders) to take holidays or take a while off and depart the town” and is unlikely to end in models being returned to the long-term rental pool.
The easiest way to maintain rental costs down could be to construct extra housing, he added.
Likewise, the province’s tourism division stated the brand new guidelines wouldn’t put an finish unlawful leases or the housing disaster.
“Quite the opposite, they may even worsen the state of affairs by pushing extra operators into illegality, returning Montreal to the Wild Net of earlier than our reforms,” it stated in an announcement to The Canadian Press.
However David Wachsmuth, the Canada Analysis Chair in city governance at McGill College, believes Montreal could succeed the place different cities have failed at cracking down on unlawful leases.
He stated platforms depart it as much as cities to trace down rule-breakers, which forces municipal officers to “play detective” and work out who’s truly a principal resident and who isn’t.
He stated enforcement will likely be simpler below these guidelines, as a result of anybody working an Airbnb exterior the designated full-time rental areas may be robotically fined exterior the summer time season.
“Anyone who’s working an Airbnb in March, if you happen to’re not on a kind of very small variety of corridors the place you’re allowed to do that (legally), it’s simply assured that you simply’re breaking the regulation,” he stated. “In order that’s only a actually elementary shift in how the general strategy of being a brief time period rental host goes to work together with the legal guidelines right here in Montreal.”
He stated most Montrealers who wish to lease their principal residence would probably be doing so largely in the summertime in any case. Due to this fact, the foundations will solely inconvenience official homesharers whereas making it a lot tougher for full-time unauthorized leases to show a revenue.
Wachsmuth additionally dismisses any claims that limiting short-term leases gained’t assist alleviate housing pressures, saying the analysis reveals “past any potential shred of a doubt” that communities that put short-term rental guidelines in place see their rents rise at a slower price than those that don’t.
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Final modified: June 3, 2025
