Montreal City Weblog

Kate 21:56 on 2021-03-14 Permalink Reply  

• Mitchell Brown 06:33 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  How much of this is typical media exaggeration and how much of it is real? Are people really unable to find movers for that day? I swore never to find myself in an apartment with a lease that expires June 30 . . . and yet now here I am. And now the media is telling me I can’t move unless I pay what I guess an American Republican would call “market prices”? Why is this even an existing situation?

• Ephraim 09:01 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  @Mitchell – It exists to lessen the problem of children having to change school during the school year. Officially the school year starts 1 July. (So summer school is actually in the next school year.)

  There are usually a lot of people moving, so landlords and tenants often help each other by being flexible. For example, allowing you a corner of a room to pile your boxes ahead of time, etc.

  My guess is that this year may be a bit different in that many people are looking for an extra room, as they work at home. So personal space is at a premium. And they want a place to work…. and they can deduct part of that cost on their taxes.

• dwgs 09:09 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  Sorry Ephraim but I’m calling BS on that theory. No other place in North America does this and their children change schools without any problems.

• Joey 09:59 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  Yeah I’ve never heard that school theory before. Moreover, why not then have leases expire from June to September? What about kids whose parents don’t rent? I always figured the July 1 thing was to rain on the Canada Day parade, so to speak…

• Kevin 10:07 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  @dwgs @Joey
  Dig into history my friends.

  Quebec and France don’t use common law, they have Civil Codes, and it used to be that all year-long contracts started and ended on May 1.

  Given the poverty of francophones in Quebec pre-Quiet Revolution, this meant a lot of families would move on May 1 to find a more affordable place

  https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=Gbw0AAAAIBAJ&sjid=7IQFAAAAIBAJ&pg=3337,6532608&dq=moving-day+may+1st&hl=en

  In 1973 a provincial government finally got around to changing this because of concerns about education and dropouts.
  https://web.archive.org/web/20070927194659/http://www.rdaq.qc.ca/cgi-bin/templates/body/archives/archives.cfm?date=2001-07-01&dateSpanID=Juill.%202001&noChro=1&file=remonterSources.cfm&ID=203

  And lo, Robert Bourassa’s Liberal government made July 1 moving day.

  Don’t like it? Go anywhere else in Canada or the U.S. Every apartment I’ve had outside Quebec was rented month-to-month.

• DavidH 10:09 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  The date used to be May 1st and it was changed because kids changing schools just before the exams was a terrible idea. Why do we have a standard date for residential leases in the first place is the real question.

• Kate 11:42 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  There’s a long history to why we have a Moving Day. Here’s an item in the Guardian about it. DavidH is correct in that for years it was on the first of May, but was moved by fiat sometime in the 1980s (?) under the Liberals, with Jérôme Choquette championing the move – so it wasn’t an anti-federalist plot. Hardly anyone would celebrate Canada Day here anyway, and not just because they’re tired from getting a sofa up a twisty staircase to a third-floor flat.

  Moving Day is not the law, it’s just a longstanding convention. When I moved into my current place it was in April (I was renovicted from a previous apartment, although the word wasn’t in use yet in 2005), but the landlady wrote my new lease to run till the next July, since, you know, that’s how it works naturally.

  Update: I wrote this comment before approving Kevin’s, where he specifies it was 1973 that the shift was made from May to July.

• Ephraim 11:59 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  The change was only done for apartments. Nothing dictated the date. The university year ends on the 1st of May and many of the apartments usually rented to students are May 1st instead of July 1st. If you sell a house, there is no specific date… and I can attest to that. I did have to move once, around the 1st of July and instead of renting a standard truck, I got one from cartage. But since I own, I have been able to set my own dates.

• dwgs 12:13 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  I’m not questioning the history of why we have a common moving date, I’m questioning why people think that it is still relevant.

• Kate 13:53 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  It’s mostly a deeply ingrained habit.

• Ephraim 14:51 on 2021-03-15 Permalink

  Well, a habit, plus the fact that they are standard 1 year leases, so at some point, someone would have to make a lease for less than a year…. how many landlords want that? It’s easier to be competitive with a single date… the whole market is looking for it.

  And then there is the 6 month notice to take over, if these is a lease.

• GC 08:21 on 2021-03-16 Permalink

  Well, when I lived in Ontario you signed a lease for the first year. If you stayed longer, the tenant had to give at least two months notice but they could get out of it at any time. Landlords might not prefer that, but it seemed like a much better arrangement for tenants. And, of course, you had people moving at all times of the year because of that; without needing to do lease transfers.

  I was a bit surprised, when I moved here, that my lease automatically rolled over to another full year after the first. We’d obviously need a policy/law shift, as well as habit changing…