Montreal tenants experience intimidation tactics

Housing is a human right, but in many cases, it’s not treated that way. 

In Montreal we’ve seen an increase in forced evictions, rapidly rising rent prices – necessary repairs ignored – leaving apartments left to fall apart while tenants have to live in it. But what happens when tenants try to fight back? Some tenants have had their water turned off, heat cut, yelled at, been harassed with numerous phone calls, experienced random visits from their landlord, threatened with eviction and more.  

Over the last couple of years, Local 514 has interviewed numerous tenants and housing groups that have discussed the different tactics some landlords use to silence tenants. In this episode, we cover how tenants are intimidated by their landlord before or after standing up for their rights. 

Montreal housing organizations share experiences they've seen tenants go through while standing up for their rights. Local 514 spoke with Front d'action populaire en réaménagement urbain (FRAPRU) organizer Catherine Lussier, Regroupement des comités logement et associations de locataires du Québec (RCLALQ) co-spokesperson Cédric Dussault, as well as a tenant who took her landlord to court and won. 

Intimidation tactics come in many forms. I can include but it not limited to Landlords using illegal tactics to get tenants to leave or intimidating tenants to accept higher rents 

Some landlords even practice illegal activity during the signing of the lease.

There’s a section in your lease that provides space for the landlord to write the previous rent price, but often this section is left blank – leaving tenants to be unaware of just how much their landlord raised the rent in between new tenants.

The Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL), Quebec’s rental board, suggested a rent increase of 2.3% this year, but some landlords are using tactics to go beyond the recommended increase.

Legally, landlords can raise the rent by any amount at the start of a new lease – but some landlords are forcefully evicting people to make this happen. 

In Quebec, landlords can evict a tenant on the premise of a renovation – the term has been coined a “renoviction”.  But in some cases, the renovations are never conducted and with the former tenants evicted – the landlord raises the price as much as they want to.

Lack of assessment over whether renovations are being conducted or not after a renoviction has occurred are not being enforced, leading to a growing phenomenon of renovictions across Montreal.

Just how large is this phenomenon in Quebec? From 2020 to 2021, renovictions increased in Montreal by 46%. Renovictions went up 46 per cent last year —  from 597 in 2020 to 874 in 2021 But access to support is delayed. In the TAL’s 2022 report, they said the wait time for tenants to have an issue resolved by the TAL in Quebec was reduced from 5.1 months to 3.9 months. But waiting an average of close to 4 months for support can cause tenants to lose hope. 

Have you faced intimidation tactics from your landlord? Let us know below in the comments.