Airbnb hosting stag parties no fun for neighbours
Metro looks into a building on Sœurs-Grises where a landlord is illegally renting on Airbnb and making life miserable for neighbouring tenants as party after party of stag and frat groups come through. There are supposed to be laws limiting this kind of rental to main streets, but it seems they’re not being enforced.
Ephraim 12:28 on 2019-07-12 Permalink
They need a licence from the city…. a “Certificat d’Occupation” and the city needs to enforce that. If they aren’t living there and renting the entire apartment, they need a certificate from the CITQ and a sign posted outside. The CITQ does the inspections, but it’s RQ that is responsible to enforce that you have your CITQ certificate, your insurance and your Certificat d’Occupation.”
These people need to get on the Minister of Revenue’s ASS and ask them why they aren’t enforcing the law as they are required to do. But the city can send in it’s own inspector. The city can also reclassify the apartment and send them a 100% commercial tax bill… and at that point, the shock of it might help. It’s 5x the standard rate.
The city isn’t enforcing their laws, the province isn’t enforcing their laws. Let’s hope that in September, they will start to do their job, as you have to list your permit (new number) on every listing everywhere!
j2 13:34 on 2019-07-12 Permalink
I haven’t noticed as big a problem this year in my out of the way corner but knowing it could be Airbnb makes it a lot easier to call in a noise complaint. I don’t need to make nice, reciprocally, with tourists.
I do believe that Airbnb, the landlord AND the tourists should pay any fine during a visit, however. At least including the landlord.
Ephraim 13:42 on 2019-07-12 Permalink
I just don’t understand RQ. Someone renting an apartment like this is subject to a minimum fine of $2500 per day… that’s $17,500 for a week. Check that they don’t have a licence… make a reservation, send in the fine… find out how quickly the situation gets remedied.
If it’s commercial, it’s $35,000 for a week…. plus in either case, you check out if they have paid their GST, QST, hotel tax, Quebec Income Tax and Federal Income Tax. And those last two are REALLY easy to fix… you just send in an assessment for what you think they made, for the last 7 years… if you are under, they just pay it, if you are over, they will bring their bank statement to show you how much AirBnB transferred to their account. With the fines for not having paid or declared it. It will clear up really quickly.
Chris 15:24 on 2019-07-12 Permalink
They don’t enforce those rules because lots of people love Airbnb. Just like they don’t enforce particulate emissions on bagel shops because lots of people love bagels. If there are too many Airbnbs in your hood, move! 😉
Ephraim 19:56 on 2019-07-12 Permalink
Lots of people like prostitutes, lots of people like meth, lots of people like crack, lots of people like Gays, lots of people like straight people…. There are a lot of things people like… AirBnBs are fine, if run legally and attentively… not as tax cheating absentee landlords who let the responsibility fall on their neighbours.
Like everyone else, we live in a cooperative society… we need to live with others. For the same reason that I don’t turn my music up at midnight…