Illegal Airbnbs continue to rise
Illegal listings with fake registration numbers continue to rise on the Airbnb site. Quebec’s law comes into effect next month – but who will be enforcing it?
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Kate
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jeather 16:07 on 2023-08-02 Permalink
Right now Airbnb seems to argue — not unfairly — that they can’t futz around with validating pdf documents and that they want a usable electronic system to validate registration numbers. But if/when they get that, no doubt there will be another excuse.
That said I do think it would be a good idea for someone to use the government tools to check until such time as the law comes into effect and the database/API is usable. After that, well, if the database is available to citizens, I have zero doubt there will be a lot of journalists and activists checking. Is that ideal? No.
Kate 16:34 on 2023-08-02 Permalink
I could be persuaded to volunteer a couple of hours a week to checking these listings and sending in reports on any that look shady. If a few dozen people did this…
Ephraim 16:55 on 2023-08-02 Permalink
The government issued PDF files. The PDF files are signed, I just think they aren’t properly signed, yet. But AirBnB obviously hasn’t yet killed enough people in Quebec, they are still fighting it with all their being, rather than sitting down and working out a way to do it all legally. Though, to be honest, maybe that should be a completely public database, showing address to licence number, without the name of the owner
DisgruntledGoat 04:45 on 2023-08-03 Permalink
Unfortunately enforcement is really lagging behind, if it’s even happening.
The Corporation de l’industrie touristique du Québec issues the certificates, and Revenu Quebec is tasked with any enforcement that relies on a member of the public reporting it. Your report probably gets printed out somewhere in the olympic village towers and goes into a file to be looked at for 5 minutes by an overworked auditor 6-12 months later.
There is a complete failure at the borough level to do anything, and why would they because higher property values and real estate development benefit them. And there is a complete failure at the provincial bureaucracy level.
Ephraim 10:56 on 2023-08-03 Permalink
As of September, the OTA will be responsible for not having their ducks in order. AirBnB is fighting because it wants it all in an API. Expedia is just asking for a copy of the PDF from the ministry to protect themselves. AirBnB is essentially hoping that by pushing back it will push back implementation. It will be much harder to fake a number when you have to send in a signed PDF file from the government. Not just enter a number.
CE 00:14 on 2023-08-06 Permalink
It would be helpful to be able to look up a CITQ number on some sort of database and see if it corresponds to a listing on Airbnb. There’s a unit in my building that I’m pretty sure is not registered and is being used to host big groups (and some of the rooms in the basement don’t have windows). I’m afraid that what happened in Old Montreal is going to happen again in my building. There’s a CITQ number on the listing but is it legit or not? Who knows, it’s impossible to search. I even asked a friend who works for Airbnb how I can see if it’s a legal listing and I was told that there’s no way to check and that in Quebec, Airbnb doesn’t validate the registration numbers (they do, however, validate them in jurisdictions where they’re required to do so).
Does anyone know why is the province is so keen to let Airbnb (a foreign company) do whatever they want despite the safety issues, the effect on the housing market, the lost tax revenues, the negative effect on the hotel industry, etc, etc? It truly makes no sense.
MarcG 08:24 on 2023-08-06 Permalink
CE: You used to be able to enter the CITQ number on the bonjourquebec.com website and it would show you the company listing it was associated with, if any. However 1) It currently seems to either be broken or they removed this functionality, and 2) When I did this and found that the company info didn’t match the Airbnb listing info, I wrote to the CITQ and told them as much and never got a response.