Residents denounce illegal Airbnb accommodations on Plateau-Mont-Royal | Supervision of Airbnb in Quebec

For exasperated neighbors, reporting illegal Airbnb accommodations turns out to be a tedious process… And this, despite the fact that the City of Montreal created a squad last summer to track down these in central neighborhoods.

The last few months have been horrible, says Albert Valera, visibly heated. The man lives near a majestic building at the corner of Sherbrooke and Saint-Hubert streets.

The majority of the ten accommodations it contains are available for short-term rental on different platforms, such as Airbnb. Over the past three months, the clientele of these accommodations has changed. Local residents even called the police on several occasions, since the building’s customers were causing trouble in the street.

One day, when she was coming home from school, my daughter saw police lights in front of the house and she had a panic attack.says mother Eurydice Prado, who lives nearby. The next day, she opened the curtains and saw two individuals on our steps who had nothing to do there. She didn’t want to go out.

Short-term rentals for tourist purposes are illegal in this area, unless the property is the owner’s primary residence. So Albert Valera set out to report the situation to the authorities… which is more difficult than he thought.

I think it’s a dead-end process.he complains.

We alerted the authorities and, although we received courteous responses and thanks, no action was taken.

A process that can stretch

To report an illegal Airbnb, Montrealers have three options: they can report it to the City, to Revenu Québec or directly to the rental platform.

It’s something that not enough people do, maybe because it’s not well known enoughsays the person responsible for housing on the city’s executive committee, Benoît Dorais.

: \”Make a complaint too to say that this one near you is illegal\”.”,”text”:”When we receive complaints, we respond that we are going to do our job, that We are going to enforce municipal regulations and we will transfer them to Revenu Québec. But we say: \”File a complaint too to say that this one near you is illegal\”.”}}”>When we receive complaints, we respond that we will do our job, that we will enforce municipal regulations and that we will transfer them to Revenu Québec. But we say: “Make a complaint too to say that this one near you is illegal.”

The City created a squad last summer to track down illegal Airbnbs in the Plateau-Mont-Royal, Ville-Marie and Sud-Ouest neighborhoods. Since last August, the squad has distributed a total of 78 tickets.

But the City can impose fines of a maximum of $2,000 for a first offense, while those given by Revenu Québec can reach up to $100,000. As for investigations, they can last up to 12 months.

It’s long, it’s indeed longconcedes Benoît Dorais.

The means that municipal inspectors have are limited. They have to be able to enter the building, they have to go and open the closet doors, the pantry doors and check the comings and goings…

An owner known to Revenu Québec

The authorities have confirmed to us that there is no duly registered tourist establishment at 3406, rue St-Hubert. This belongs to the company MS 5 Canada inc.

Revenu Québec issued a fine of $7,500 to the company a year ago for operating a tourist accommodation establishment that was not registered. The company’s owners are all domiciled in Toronto. They did not respond to our multiple requests for interviews.

Residents of rue Saint-Hubert hope that the authorities will crack down again.

I feel very vulnerable, disappointed, and we hope to have a little support in all of thissays Eurydice Prado, who dreams of finding tranquility in her neighborhood.