A landlord who evicted tenants on false pretenses has been ordered to pay them $62,000.
Updates from May, 2026 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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Kate
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Kate
Banned Airbnb rentals continue during the Grand Prix.
Ephraim
AirBnB is intentionally NOT checking licences. Take a look at https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/1385850659507263185 with registration 878655
If you go to https://www.quebec.ca/tourisme-loisirs-sport/hebergement-touristique/repertoire to check it, it doesn’t even exist.
Please, someone tell me how they are acting in good faith and validating licences when the licence doesn’t even exist. Anything that AirBnB tells you is a LIE until proven not to be… there is absolutely no reason to believe them, ever!
I have a list of hundreds of such listings in Montreal, with no way to get AirBnB to do anything about it. They just ignore it. Even the threat of government fines doesn’t influence them.
GC
“Alyssa” also has twenty-one (!) properties listed. Doubtful that any of them are according to the rules.
Nicholas
When you join Communauto they ask for your DL number and then they check it with SAAQ. I understand it’s all digital. But I guess contrary to the investor promotions they’re not a tech company but a lowly hotel company, doing everything on paper with not enough staff.
Ephraim
They are legally required to do the check. It’s a government signed PDF file, but it’s easy enough to check. But they don’t want to check.
The real solution… The city of Montreal should make it 100% illegal until AirBnB agrees to follow the laws 100% and to act swiftly (with 48 hours) when it’s not. Until then, it’s against the law and we won’t even discuss it with you.
Look up https://www.airbnb.ca/users/profile/1470698774913283921 Marylou has over 30 properties using the ID of a little place out in Riviere-Rouge…. like seriously, how could AirBnB not know that J0T1T0 is NOT in Montreal? And look at the picture, that looks like stock photography… and she speaks Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish… is an architect who want to UdeM and has 50 listings… That’s a HOTEL amount of listings. That is million in revenues. Let’s estimate a LOW $100 a night, that’s $5000 a night, which should bring in $258.75 in GST and $516.21 in QST (AirBnB collects and remits the 3.5%). Not to mention the property tax on 50 apartments which are COMMERCIAL and not residential. Say that’s just May, through October at 75% occupancy. That is 183 days, 75% occupancy is 137.25 days at $258.75 for a total of $35513.44 in GST, At $516.21 in QST that is $70849.82. Right there is $106K in just the sales taxes. Not to mention income taxes and property taxes. This is a major theft from the public purse. And that’s also 50 apartments that locals can’t live in.
qatzelok
“They are legally required to do the check.”
Yes, but are Western governments really “in charge” of anything or are the billionaires behind these new rule-breaking corporations (Uber, Uber-eats, Airbnb, Amazon) really calling the shots?
Aren’t we living in an Age of Outlaws?
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Kate
The SPCA is offering free adoptions for older cats this weekend.
(Someone stop me from going by for a six-pack of tabbies…)
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Kate
In a classic Grand Prix weekend incident, a 22‑year‑old man smashed up a Lamborghini after going at high speed
on the A‑15 in Longueuilsomewhere on the South Shore.In other news of powerful cars, CTV got hold of footage of an incident at the Ferrari dealership on Jean‑Talon two years ago. A car belonging to Luc Poirier, in the dealership for repairs, burst into flames, injuring a bystander so gravely he nearly died. Richard Papazian is suing the dealership, the car maker and others for $20 million. The story was really only reported earlier this month and CTV alleges a sort of news blackout at the time.
Tim S.
Pretty sure the 15 does not go through Longueuil. Maybe Brossard
Kate
The deck says “sur l’autoroute 15 à Longueuil” and I believed it, but the map agrees with you, Tim. The 15 is the Champlain, which crosses then goes west along the river (west in the Montreal sense, I mean). The road that goes east (Mtl sense) from the point after the crossing, toward Longueuil, is the 134.
Blork
It’s actually the 132 (which runs along the river) where the crash happened. The 134 is Taschereau Blvd. (in the same way that Sherbrooke Street in Montreal is also the 138.)
When you come off the Pont Champlain you either continue straight on the A10 or loop around to the 132. If you go south it’s the 132 AKA the A15, and if you go north it’s the 132 AKA the A20. (132 is the highway designation and A20/A10/A15 are the autoroute designations. Along these stretches that road is both a highway and an autoroute.) Such is life in Quebec.
The latter is what Lambo boy did (132/20). He then crashed at the edge of St-Lambert (which is not in Longueuil).
Blork
Also: what 22-year-old has a $500,000 Lambo? Is he some kind of bitcoin wunderkind or is he some spoiled offspring who’s now in big, big trouble with Daddy?
steph
Looks like that car rolled.. & looks like the Notre-Dame exit corner Riverside. https://tinyurl.com/46ercp9r
Tim S.
Re-reading the article, maybe the police initially spotted him on the 15 or the Champlain bridge. The Notre-Dame exit comes up to a pretty sharp right angle turn, easy to see the car losing control there and skidding towards Riverside.
Bert
Tim, yes, that was my thinking. I concur with your analysis of the numbering of various parts of highway. Always seemed odd that and even numbered route (east-west) and an odd numbered route (north-south) could share the same physical road. Additionally you get in to the Canada Route 1, the Trans-Canda, which also has a shared designation.
They may have initially spotted the Raging Bull on the Decarie or possibly the Met, or more remotely the actual Laurentian HW, i.e. north of the Met, and the chase ended on the South Shore (the front river?), where the 15 designation seems to no longer be true. The 15 North goes all the way up to about St. Donat!
That said, I did sort of the same trip today, and there was a higher than usual police presence on the roads, for reasons we understand. In about 140km, I saw 8-10 vehicles, be it patrolling or monitoring. Lots of Christmas lights on the go.
Uatu
Right in front of a school, bike path and Musee Marcil. That’s probably one of the busiest intersections in St Lambert. Lucky nobody else got hurt. Grand Prix time usually has people in Lambos, Ferraris and other souped up cars cruising up and down Taschereau and Rome blvd so either lots of rich owners or more likely renters (which this kid probably was)
MarcG
They still haven’t fixed the Longueuil mistake; I guess the editors at TVA aren’t blog readers like others seem to be.
Blork
That report is so messed up. If you look at the photos and video you can see that the wrecked Lambo is at the corner of Riverside and Notre-Dame in St-Lambert, so the crash wasn’t even on the 132 (as the report said). Most likely he exited the 132 at exit 79. As Tim S. said, there’s a hard right turn there, but I think he managed the turn and then spun out when he stomped the gas after the turn, which is a common problem with supercharged cars and inexperienced drivers. (If he had failed the turn he most likely wouldn’t have made it to Riverside; the trajectory would have put him into the trees or maybe the parking lot just past the trees.)
Tim S.
I wonder if there’s a fleet of rental super cars that follows the F1 circuit around.
MarcG
Maybe they mean the “agglomération de Longueuil”?
Blork
MarcG, I think you’re correct. My mistake is that I thought St-Lambert had withdrawn from the agglomeration the way Westmount withdrew from Montreal, but apparently not.
Meezly
Can’t believe the awful story about the man who got severe burns at the Ferrari dealership just for being at the wrong place at the wrong time and how his story somehow always gets buried. I see you!
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Kate
Notice the absence of facts in these brief and almost identical reports of a person getting hurt in an encounter with the SPVM on Friday. Age and gender of the victim, location in town, reason why police were called – nothing. I don’t blame the journalists – the BEI are keeping wraps on this one.
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Kate
Radio-Canada previews the Festival Go vélo which starts this weekend out of town, and culminates next Friday and Sunday with the Tour la Nuit and Tour de l’Île. Event site.
SMD
There’s the free Critical Mass for kids at 2:30pm today, from Parc Père-Marquette down to Parc Lafontaine (by way of Parc Laurier) with activities and animation. And the usual Critical Mass on Friday the 29th at 5pm at the Mont-Royal statue.
Kate
Thank you, SMD.
jeather 13:43 on 2026-05-23 Permalink
Made a million in increased value in the home, landlord still came out well ahead. It’s a good start but unless judgements like this — not just to landlords but various companies that break the law — are actually painful financially the cost of a lawsuit or two will just be built in to their costs.
Blork 14:44 on 2026-05-23 Permalink
This story is confusing. They were evicted in 2022. “Then, in October 2023, she saw that the house was being torn down.” Then “In May 2025, the home was listed for sale for $1,275,000 and was sold for $1,215,000.”
But if the home was torn down in 2023 how was it sold for $1.2M in 2025. Did they build a new house and then sell that? Or was it just the lot that sold?
I wish these journalists would pay a bit more attention when putting these stories together.
Chris 14:55 on 2026-05-23 Permalink
Maybe no journalist was involved and it’s just AI slop.
Kate 15:36 on 2026-05-23 Permalink
Presumably something new was built on the lot, that seemed implied. The tenants were chucked out for this profitable redevelopment, on the false claim that a relative of the owner was going to move in. All the other details, like the tenant being ill, are beside the point.
Nicholas 16:21 on 2026-05-23 Permalink
A journalist would have linked to the decision. (Jk they mostly would not.)
Anyway it’s a train wreck of a case. The landlord demanded an illegal security deposit, tried to evict the tenant for his stepson too late into the lease renewal period, tried again later early enough but stepchildren aren’t close enough to allow family lease evictions, the stepson was never going to permanently occupy the place because he just wanted to live there while doing a reno on his larger place, then the owner applied for demolition less than a year after saying this would be a permanent occupation, demolished and built a new house reusing just the foundation with his related construction company that did not have an RBQ licence, sold the clearly new home without charging sales taxes, among other issues. The one sympathetic thing was that all the new people complained of urine smell, likely from the dogs, but the judge awarded them no damages because they didn’t get any proof and he mostly didn’t trust them.
He bought the property for $255,000 at some point and sold it for a million more, but it’s unclear the cost of demolition and construction. Hopefully this guy will get a nice penalty from the tax agencies.
Blork 18:03 on 2026-05-23 Permalink
Thanks for the link, Nicholas. The info is clear in the decision. Indeed, the house was demolished and a new one built, which was then sold.
And yeah, he bought it for $255k, sometime before 2016, then sold it for $1.2M after demolishing and rebuilding, so he’s probably only up by $200 or $300k, in which case the $62k payment to the former tenant is a pretty good ouch. ($100k or $200k profit after 10+ years, when you subtract a decade’s worth of taxes, plus all the bother and expenses of demolition and building… not a great return on investment.)
jeather 08:55 on 2026-05-24 Permalink
Don’t forget the approximately 100k in rent he took in over that period.