The real estate giant Capreit which is clogging up the TAL: finally changes since our report

Tenants of the real estate giant Capreit, which has multiplied hundreds of lawsuits at the TAL, have reported progress since the broadcast of our investigation.

At the Lanthier Royal, a building in west Montreal, residents denounced late repairs, hot water outages, garbage odors, loss of services and poor maintenance. Several also complained about the impossibility of negotiating rent increases.

Since the revelations of JE a you Journal at the end of November, changes seem to be taking place.

“There is not a single day without coming across a janitor in the corridor carrying out repairs,” rejoices long-time tenant Micheline Simard.

After 13 years of waiting, the promised work in his bathroom was finally carried out.

“The mold problems linked to our common room have also been resolved,” she adds.

That said, “even today we have not had hot water, so things are not yet ideal”, nuance M^me Simard.

A Village in need of love

The investigation also highlighted the frustration of dozens of Olympic Village tenants who denounced the lack of maintenance, a growing feeling of insecurity and the loss of services promised in their lease.

The Olympic Village Tenants Association (ALVO) recently encouraged its members to demand financial compensation for the closure of the swimming pool as well as a reduction in rent.

According to some residents, Capreit promised to organize information meetings every three months to better inform tenants of the progress of the work.

Thousands of judgments

Capreit, which manages nearly 10,000 housing units in Quebec, is the company having obtained the most judgments from the Administrative Housing Tribunal (TAL), mainly for requests to fix rent.

When a tenant refuses an increase, the landlord can negotiate or ask the TAL to set the amount.

Between 2022 and 2024, the number of judgments in which Capreit appears as plaintiff jumped by 84%.

Capreit disputes the analysis of our figures.

“Given that Capreit is the largest housing provider in Quebec, cases involving Capreit were in fact under-represented at the Tribunal,” the company explained by email.

Promises to be fulfilled

In this same exchange, Capreit committed to “handling tenants’ concerns and their requests for repair work as a matter of priority.”

“We have strengthened the training of local staff who manage our buildings in Quebec and recruited additional management staff to improve the efficiency of our services,” says the company.

It also provides a satisfaction rate of 80.5% for the maintenance of its buildings, but has not revealed how it went about achieving this result.