Montreal City Weblog

Kate 12:01 on 2019-01-05 Permalink Reply  

• Ian 12:59 on 2019-01-05 Permalink

  Ryan’s been posting pics of those to the Book of Faces for a few weeks, kind of weird TVA only pickes up the story now.

• Ephraim 15:28 on 2019-01-05 Permalink

  Yeah, they don’t want them attached to their property because they are evading the taxes and don’t want RQ to see where they are. The city shouldn’t have had a minutes worth of thought about this and removed them the first time they saw them.

  In fact, AirBnB is still telling people that they won’t report their income, even while collecting lodging tax, so they can continue to avoid declaring it and having a legal licence. They are pond scum.

• Blork 10:47 on 2019-01-06 Permalink

  For Pete’s sake. We’ve discussed Airbnb here before, at length, and I totally get the concerns expressed by Ephraim and others, but I’ve also happily used Airbnb a number of times. But this thing where the owners keep the key in a lockbox locked to public “furniture” shows the extent to which short-term rentals has been commodified, and is a perfect illustration of why we can’t have nice things. (Or to use an older idiom, you give them an inch and they take a mile.)

  Every Airbnb I’ve stayed at involved direct communication with the owner, and meeting them F2F on arrival, where the owner conducted a walkabout in the apartment, explained this or that, and made sure we had their contact info and knew what’s what in the neighbourhood. It always felt like we were staying in the apartment of a friend of a friend, or a relative.

  This lockbox thing shows that at least some of these Airbnb owners are just self-entitled unlicensed hotel keepers. :-/

• Tee Owe 13:24 on 2019-01-06 Permalink

  This is my second attempt, something’s not great with the system – anyway –
  My only airbnb experience was in old Montreal. The key was in a lockbox in the hallway, never met the owner, far as we could tell the whole buildings was airbnb’s. It put me off, I would far rather a hotel or bed-and-breakfast. Pity not to have had Blork’s experience.

• Ephraim 16:34 on 2019-01-06 Permalink

  I deal with AirBnB rescues all summer (and usually I’m booked) and the begging for help is real. Many doesn’t do Face2Face, but instead use lock boxes. Some of them do bait and switch and say that the property you rented isn’t available (again, I get the phone calls) and I’ve even had two or three couples show up at my door claiming they had a reservation with me… who definitely didn’t… even had one English couple have to get on the phone to the place and eventually had to take them to a hole-in-the-wall (after picking up the key from a 3rd party).

  Oh and I’ve been in a few Montreal AirBnBs… so far, not one that I would stay in. But my problem is simply doing it legally, declare the income and do it as it should be done…. There are a few in Montreal who do. But there are a bunch that are Fly-By-Night and disappear quickly. But the fact that AirBnB actually assures people that they don’t report their income or give their details to Revenu Quebec is why I call them pond scum. I’m sorry, but when you are clearly helping people avoid taxes, you aren’t a company, you are a crime.

• Ephraim 10:46 on 2019-01-07 Permalink

  Thinking about it, the city should call Revenu Quebec when they find these keys and when they lop them off, have the inspectors walk around a bit and try them on a few doors in the area. They could even ask the neighbours, who would likely know who’s key it is. At $2500 a day for the fine, this could be profitable. (And RQ does not need a warrant to enter for suspected tax evasion.)