Quebec rental rules: advocates fear new laws

A law allowing Quebecers to rent their homes for short-term stays, for example, through Airbnb, will come into effect later this month, drawing concerns from housing advocates as The City of Montreal says it doesn’t have the means to enforce existing regulations .

The upcoming change is drawing concerns from housing advocates, who fear the law will allow people to skirt existing rules more easily.

The new rules, packaged into Bill 67, mean cities won’t be able to prohibit residents from renting out their principal residences with bylaws. However, the province will allow municipalities to limit those short term rentals through zoning.

Municipalities have until March 25 to enforce any zoning laws that would restrict Bill 67’s application.

While short-term rentals have been a repeated source of complaints from housing advocates, who say they can attract noisy guests to otherwise quiet residential areas and eat up available housing stock, Montreal chose not to restrict Bill 67.

A spokesperson told CTV News the boroughs have already created rules for short-term rentals which will continue to apply after March 25.

The new rules will only allow Quebecers to rent out their principal residences for up to 30 days. In practice, that would

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New York City Rental Market: Worst Stories of 2022

Photo-Illustration: Curbed; Photo Getty Images

The real-estate market was out of control in 2022. After two years of COVID deals, many of which were for just somewhat less expensive but still expensive rents, landlords and brokers had their revenge: Low inventory and high demand alchemized to turn the search for a New York City apartment into something even more demeaning, frantic, and, of course, pricey than ever. People lined up around the block to view sad studio apartments and offered to raise their own rent to get an edge over other prospective tenants. The people throwing themselves at the feet of their future landlords were the lucky ones — as pandemic-era protections ran out, many couldn’t afford to stay in their apartments at all, facing rent hikes of $500, $1,000, or even $2,500. Below, in miserable detail, the year in rent — which, by the way, is due again on January 1.

In January 2022, an estimated 591,000 households owed a total of $1.97 billion in back rent. Federal rent-relief funds were running out, which had led Governor Kathy Hochul to close the Emergency Rental Assistance Program’s application portal a few months earlier, even though Legal Aid estimated that 400,000

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