{"id":175989,"date":"2023-08-31T12:44:31","date_gmt":"2023-08-31T16:44:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/?p=175989"},"modified":"2023-08-31T12:44:31","modified_gmt":"2023-08-31T16:44:31","slug":"montrealers-take-to-the-streets-to-save-lease-transfers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/montrealers-take-to-the-streets-to-save-lease-transfers\/","title":{"rendered":"Montrealers take to the streets to save lease transfers"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of Montrealers took to the streets last Friday in protest of <\/span>the proposed Bill 31<\/span><\/a>. If passed, Bill 31 would allow landlords the right to refuse a tenant\u2019s lease transfer.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Landlords already have the right to refuse a lease transfer if they aren\u2019t given adequate notice or proof a new tenant can pay. But that would expand under the new law, such that landlords wouldn\u2019t need a reason to refuse.<\/span><\/p>\n

Darby MacDonald was at the protest both as a renter and a former social housing advocate. She says that affordable housing is becoming harder to find.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe just see a general degradation in people\u2019s access to housing, people having to make greater and greater concessions to landlords to even access it.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For MacDonald, the proposed Bill 31 is consistent with the Coalition Avenir Quebec\u2019s larger policy agenda, <\/span>which includes getting out of the business of building and administering social housing<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re looking at is just total disengagement from the provincial government of their responsibility to provide housing to their citizens, including social housing.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt almost feels like a joke.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Julianna Duholke is a lawyer specializing in tenants\u2019 rights. She says her office gets calls every day, from more tenants than they could possibly represent.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cAll the time they\u2019re being served insane rent increases or notices of renovictions\u2026 landlords really making it hard for people to live in places that they\u2019ve been in for sometimes multiple decades.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBecause they have low rents, landlords will do anything to get them out.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Even now, before the bill has passed, tenants can still face pushback or even harassment from landlords when they try to transfer their lease.<\/span><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the case with Carly, who asked to keep her last name private because of an ongoing conflict with her own landlords. She says when she submitted a <\/span>notice of lease assignment<\/span><\/a>, her landlords refused and threatened to renovict her. <\/span><\/p>\n

Doing her own research and speaking to someone from the <\/span>Tribunal administratif du logement <\/span><\/i>helped her know her rights and successfully complete the lease transfer process.<\/span><\/p>\n

But under the new bill, she wouldn\u2019t have had the option.<\/span><\/p>\n

The next major protest is planned for Sept. 16 at 1 p.m. outside of Prefontaine Metro.<\/span><\/p>\n

Listen to the story below:<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hundreds of Montrealers took to the streets last Friday in protest of the proposed Bill 31. If passed, Bill 31 would allow landlords the right to refuse a tenant\u2019s lease transfer.\u00a0 Landlords already have the right to refuse a lease transfer if they aren\u2019t given adequate notice or proof a new tenant can pay. But…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":164,"featured_media":175993,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[21655,225],"tags":[11405,29497,12770,19188,2335,29778,29779,29777,14419,25859],"radio":[28325],"origine":[274,1145,260],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175989"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/164"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=175989"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175989\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176516,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/175989\/revisions\/176516"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/175993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=175989"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=175989"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=175989"},{"taxonomy":"radio","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/radio?post=175989"},{"taxonomy":"origine","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canada-info.ca\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/origine?post=175989"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}