This Quebec tenant won three cases at the TAL. Now landlords won’t rent to him

A Sherbrooke man claim landlords are refusing him housing after filing complaints with the housing tribunal.

When Steve transferred his Sherbrooke, Que., apartment lease and left for an exchange program in Australia last year, he didn’t expect to be blacklisted by landlords for having contested rental hikes at the province’s housing tribunal.

The tenant, who asked to remain anonymous out of fear of further housing discrimination, won all three cases that his former landlord had opened against him before the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL).

Still, he says, landlords told him they now think of him as a “problem tenant” for having enforced his rights.

He claims that because of this no one will rent to him.

“One of the people that my girlfriend and I had visited online straight up said ‘Hey, I don’t want this. I don’t want you to bring me to the TAL,’” Steve told CTV News.

“Why would I bring you to the TAL? You’re not trying to swindle me, right? ... I just had an issue with this one specific landlord that was trying to double my rent every time.”

Experts say Steve isn’t alone, and the low housing supply in the province is making it easy for landlords to discriminate against tenants they think will be a headache.

Steve says when he first moved from Montreal to Sherbrooke for work in 2021, he found an apartment for $1,200 per month, adding he discovered it was overpriced after moving in.

Despite initial promises of a renovated apartment, the home lacked basic amenities and had a mould issue. Mushrooms were even growing in the bathroom.

When Steve checked Section G of his lease, where landlords are obliged to declare the lowest rent paid for the unit over the 12 months, he saw the previous tenant paid about $600 per month.

The landlord had doubled the rent.

Steve says he tried to negotiate with the landlord to bring the rent down to $900 per month, but was refused.

A rent fixing case was then opened at the TAL, but before a judgment was issued Steve’s landlord sent him another notice for a rent increase.

“At this point, I’m wondering, are you just trying to weaponize the system against me?” he asked. “Now, I have two files open, right? What’s going on here? This is weird.”

A third case was then opened for rent fixation.

Eventually, the TAL ruled in Steve’s favour, setting his rent at $865 per month, and later at $881 per month, lower than the price he first asked for.

In their decisions, reviewed by CTV News, the judges noted that the landlord had failed to provide evidence that would justify the requested increases, plus sections of the lease weren’t properly filled out.

• READ MORE: Rent increase cases more than tripled at Quebec’s housing tribunal in last 5 years

During his time in Sherbrooke, Steve went back to school and was accepted for an academic year abroad. He transferred his lease and thought it would be easy enough to find a new place upon returning.

However, he says finding a new home for July 1 has been anything but simple.

As they’re currently on the other side of the globe, Steve and his partner can’t visit apartments in person. He claims that as soon as landlords look up his records, they see the TAL cases and flag him as a possibly difficult tenant.

“It’s really sketchy for them to see my name come up, even though I was right,” he said.

After months of searching, Steve says he and his partner started feeling desperate.

The only landlord willing to have them as tenants refused to sign a lease with Steve. Instead, she was willing to sign just with his partner – and only if her parents signed on as guarantors.

“My girlfriend’s like, ‘Well, I’m 32 years old. Why do you need to get my parents to sign like I’m some sort of child?’” Steve said. “I felt swindled and therefore I used the resources that were at my disposition … And now, because of that, I’m seen as some sort of problem tenant … is it really a fair system if I have everything to lose and the landlords don’t?”

A tenant blacklist

Mario Mercier with the Association des locataires de Sherbrooke says he’s heard dozens of stories like Steve’s.

“It’s basically systematic,” he said of the phenomenon. “Landlords are using the docket almost like a tenant blacklist. Normally, they shouldn’t because [the tenant] was within his rights … but it’s absolutely not something insignificant that happens rarely.”

He says landlords often use a form to screen applicants, which asks them if they have ever had a case at the TAL.

When tenants are honest and say yes, Mercier notes their application is often not considered at all.

Mercier says he tries to help tenants find legal recourse, but the burden of proof is so high that it typically goes nowhere.

This was the case when CTV News spoke with a second tenant who said that despite her and her partner’s high salaries and good credit, one case at the TAL was enough to face multiple rejections from landlords.

In an investigation online, CTV News found some landlords encouraged each other to refuse tenants based on their TAL history, no matter the reasoning behind the case.

One landlord in the Facebook group ‘Mordus d’immobilier’ started a poll in 2024, asking others if they would rent to a tenant with a TAL history.

The two options were “YES, I could take them as a tenant,” or “NO, as soon as a tenant has a case before the TAL I systematically refuse.”

Though most of the 400 or so respondents picked the former, 100 landlords voted for the latter.

“You shouldn’t rent to tenants with a file. It’s the only way we can exert pressure. It’s clear to me if you have a file at the TAL, especially if it’s to get rent fixed, then it’s a no,” one landlord commented on a similar post.

A tenant’s rights

Lawyer Julien Delangie warns that the Civil Code forbids landlords from refusing a lease to a tenant who has formally asserted their rights before the courts.

However, proving discrimination is challenging — in fact, it’s almost impossible.

“It’s very often, very hard to prove that this is the exact and only reason for which they were refused, even if it’s the case,” he said. “If the landlord doesn’t state the real reason behind the refusal, it’s going to be hard to assert the tenant’s rights about this.”

He adds it’s a symptom of the housing crisis.

“When you have so many tenants fighting for a given apartment and sometimes even offering more than the rent that is asked for, that’s when it becomes very easy for landlords to discriminate on an unlawful basis,” he said.

He and Mercier worry tenants will accept abusive rent increases and stay in inadequate dwellings out of fear of being blacklisted.

• READ MORE: Montreal’s vacancy rate is going up, but so is rent

There are penal provisions that can result in fines ranging from $200 to $1,900 or punitive damages for housing discrimination.

However, Delangie says the fines are rarely applied.

Useless fines?

Quebec Housing Minister France-Élaine Duranceau admitted as much during debates around her housing law project, Bill 31, in 2022. Transcripts of those debates are available on the National Assembly’s website.

At the time, she said, “In real life, in order for fines to be applied, there has to be a denunciation, there has to be an investigation, there has to be an investigation report, there has to be a provisional decision.”

It takes prosecution, an indictment and a trial, she continued, for charges to be laid, and the money “doesn’t go into the pocket of the person who was the victim,” and instead goes to the government.

While Liberal MNA Virginie Dufour pressed Duranceau, saying she would like for fines to serve a purpose, the minister insisted that punitive damages are the way to go.

A spokesperson for Duranceau’s office recently told CTV News the minister was simply stating the “facts about the process of implementing these provisions.”

Bill 31 introduced punitive measures to condemn landlords who fail to comply with Section G of a lease, as well as those who neglect their buildings.

“The TAL has the power to order a party to a lease to pay punitive damages. All you have to do is apply and prove your allegations before the Tribunal,” said spokesperson Justine Vezina.

Fines are criminal penalties and fall under the Ministry of Justice’s responsibility.

“It is not criminal sanctions that guarantee a person’s ability to freely exercise his or her rights, but our legal system,” she said.

Delangie argues the minister’s answer isn’t satisfactory.

“Of course, there can be a civil suit against you, but it’s also a penal offence, and you could be liable to a fine, but there’s no one that’s enforcing that,” he said.

Landlord-tenant contract

Eric Sansoucy, spokesperson for the Corporation des propriétaires immobiliers du Québec (CORPIQ), says it’s crucial for both landlords and tenants to be transparent with each other because “it’s all about building a relationship of trust.”

He stresses that CORPIQ does not endorse discriminatory behaviour.

However, he says it’s normal for a landlord to want to know more about who they are renting to and make sure there are no legitimate concerns about payments or behaviour issues.

“We strongly encourage tenants to be open, if there’s a past issue, explain it upfront, rather than just let the landlord discover it, and it helps rebuild trust and establish the basis for a good understanding,” he said.

On the other hand, CORPIQ says it encourages landlords to be understanding, as some tenants have legitimate reasons for contacting the TAL.

“We think landlords and tenants should be able to go to the tribunal if they feel that they are under a situation where their rights are not respected,” said Sansoucy.

• READ MORE: What Montreal tenants should know in a competitive rental market

Steve, who admits he has had a hard time finding understanding landlords, says he wants the names of tenants who win their case to be removed from public documents to prevent discrimination.

“Look, if someone skips on their rental obligations or makes a mess or breaks things, 100 per cent name and shame them,” he said.

“But for people who are…in a situation where if they say ‘no’ to this double rent increase, even though it’s an absolutely absurd increase and it’ll never fly in court, just the fact that their name now pops up on the website where all the judgments in Quebec are, now suddenly life becomes very hard for them.”

Delangie says removing names is easier said than done. There are various databases where landlords can look up potential tenants’ past cases.

Plus, the experts say that without proper enforcement measures and other ways to find tenants’ files, it’s unlikely that any discriminatory behaviour will stop.