27,000 applications are still pending at the Tribunal du logement

The Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL, formerly the Régie du logement) has significantly improved its average time before a first hearing for certain types of applications. However, the number of pending files remained high at 27,431 as of March 31, the end of the period covered by its annual report unveiled last week. It is still less than a few years ago when 37,000 cases were deplored.

Overall, the average time for a first hearing has dropped by 20% compared to 2018-2020. However, this figure should be put into perspective, as 13,121 cases were postponed to a later date, a record. Ten years ago, there were fewer than 10,000 per year. The adjournment or postponement of a hearing is usually the responsibility of the judge, but it can also be the responsibility of the parties and their lawyers. 

Altogether, the improvement is real, as the total average time from application to decision has decreased from 8.0 to 6.9 months.

No less than 16 more judges were appointed in 2019, three have left and three are sitting part-time, CORPIQ calculated. These new resources, made possible by the government's allocation of $24 million over 5 years, have improved the capacity of the TAL. Further progress is expected by next year when the new judges reach their full capacity and the impact of the measures in Bill 16 reforming the tribunal's administrative processes will be felt.

For this year, the president of the TAL, M^e Patrick Simard, stated in August that the tribunal had recovered all the backlog accumulated during the three months of paralysis this spring. In some regions, however, CORPIQ has been able to observe that landlords are still waiting for a hearing for applications filed in... January.

Non-payment of rent

In the twelve months that ended on March 31, the TAL received 39,284 applications for non-payment of rent, the lowest number observed in decades. Those that made it to hearing were heard in an average of 1.5 months, with no real increase from 1.6 months a year earlier (and with no effect either, as a third rent is unpaid as of the date of the hearing). It should be noted that the average time for a decision on non-payment is now 14 days. It was 5 days a decade ago. A situation that CORPIQ denounces, since in the absence of the tenant, it is the majority of the decisions that the judges could render on the bench.

Fixing of rent

As we were expecting, the low vacancy rate in the housing market has encouraged tenants not to move and landlords to raise their prices. After a low point, the number of rent-fixings has logically started to rise again: 4451 (compared to 3017 two years ago). However, delays before the hearing in fixing have seen a reverse trend, dropping by half to an average of 5.6 months.

Urgent and non-urgent applications

Claimants obtained a hearing in an average of 1.8 months for urgent situations, with no change over the past year. However, the TAL was able to reduce the time to hearing for general cases (those that do not question occupancy). On average, it took 10 months instead of 14 months. The same thing for priority cases, which the court hears two months faster.

Demand for repossession on the rise

Demand for repossessions of housing has increased sharply in 2019-2020, again due to the scarcity of available housing, which is causing landlords to use them to house members of their own families. There were 1,500 cases that ended up in court in the last year, compared to 1,000 in 2019 and 900 in 2018.

Overall, CORPIQ is satisfied with the performance of the Tribunal administratif du logement, which seems to be able to regain control over the processing of cases since the Auditor General's damning report in 2016. The new resources allocated to it, new internal management practices and now its new legal powers explain this turnaround. These new powers are expected to significantly reduce the 13,000 postponements and 2,250 requests for retraction of judgments from tenants, two costly situations that have bogged down the judicial system more than ever in the past year. 

 

Average time before first hearing
Tribunal administratif du logement

	2019-2020	2018-2019
Fixing and revision	5.6 months	10.5 months
Non-payment	1.5 months	1.6 months
Urgent cases	1.8 months	1.8 months
Priority cases (other than urgent or non-payment)	9.1 months	11.4 months
General cases	10.6 months	14.1 months

Source : Tribunal administratif du logement