A tenant who stops paying, and a North Shore plex that turns into a financial sinkhole while the clock at the Rental Housing Tribunal grinds along in slow motion. That is the reality lived by thousands of small multi-unit landlords in Quebec. TAT delays are not an administrative detail: they decide who — the landlord or the non-payer — finances the wait.
Opinion column by the ImmoMulti Team. Facts are sourced; opinions are our own.
🔥 Our take, no hedging
Let's say it plainly: in Quebec, the eviction system for non-payment punishes the landlord, not the tenant who has stopped paying. On paper, a plex owner can request termination of the lease as soon as the rent is three weeks late. In real life, between the application, the wait for a hearing, the decision and enforcement by a bailiff, months go by — and every month without rent comes out of the landlord's pocket, not the occupant's.
The result is perverse: the slowness of the TAT turns unpaid rent into a hostage situation. The small duplex or triplex owner on the North Shore — often an owner-occupant counting on that rent to pay the mortgage — becomes the involuntary banker of someone who has stopped honouring their lease. This is not social compassion: it is a silent transfer of risk onto the person least able to absorb it.
Nine months to be heard: the numbers that hurt
According to La Presse, which reported on October 30, 2025 on the 2024-2025 annual management report of the Rental Housing Tribunal, the wait for a first hearing can reach roughly nine months in rent-fixing and rent-modification disputes. In the same year, the TAT received 42,934 applications for non-payment of rent and recovery — a volume comparable to pre-pandemic levels.
Non-payment cases are normally handled as a priority, but an overloaded tribunal is still a slow tribunal. And CORPIQ, which has defended landlords for decades, points out that non-payment cases account for roughly 75% of the tribunal's files — in other words, the congestion strikes right at the heart of the costliest problem for landlords.
The brutal math
On a unit rented at $1,200/month, nine months of proceedings with no rent collected represent more than $10,000 in lost income — before bailiff fees, legal fees and restoring the unit. For a triplex owner, that is often a full year of profit wiped out by a single tenant.
Sources: La Presse, October 30, 2025 ; CORPIQ — Delays at the Rental Housing Tribunal.
The "I pay just before the hearing" loophole
The worst part of this system is the loophole best known to seasoned tenants. The Rental Housing Tribunal is clear: if the tenant pays the rent owed, the costs and the interest before the decision, the landlord can no longer pursue the eviction proceedings. In theory, this is a reasonable protection against evicting a good-faith tenant who has had a temporary cash-flow gap.
In practice, a strategic occupant can pile up late payments, wait until the eve of the hearing, pay at the last minute to abort the proceedings… then start again the following month. The plex owner is back to square one each cycle, and the counter of lost months keeps adding up without ever leading to a termination. It's the rental version of "always late, never evictable."
"The day after the rent was due, if the tenant has not paid it in full, they are in default. […] In the event of a delay of more than three weeks, the landlord can ask the Tribunal for payment of the rent, but also for termination of the lease and eviction of the tenant."
— Rental Housing Tribunal, "Payment of rent"The right to file therefore exists from the 21st day. But between the right to file and the right to obtain, there is an ocean of calendar. This dynamic resembles the one we described in our column on how housing policy is strangling the small plex landlord: rules designed for the vulnerable tenant, applied without regard for the individual landlord who lacks the deep pockets of a fund.
Winning at the TAT isn't enough: there's still the bailiff
Suppose you finally win your case. You are not out of the woods. According to the TAT, enforcement of an eviction decision goes through a bailiff who files a notice of execution with the clerk of the Court of Québec and serves it on the tenant. For an eviction, the notice must be served at least five days before the bailiff proceeds. And no eviction takes place on a public holiday or between December 24 and January 2.
Add it all up: the initial delay, filing the application, waiting for the hearing, deliberation, service of the notice of execution, the five-day delay, the bailiff's availability. The "right" to evict turns into an obstacle course of several months. Meanwhile, the unit generates nothing, and your expenses — taxes, insurance, mortgage — keep falling due right on time.
| Step | What happens | Effect on the landlord |
|---|---|---|
| Day 1 to 21 | Rent in default; right to request termination after 3 weeks | Lost income starts |
| Filing → hearing | Wait that can reach several months | Lost rent piles up |
| Last-minute payment | Eviction proceedings blocked if everything is paid before the decision | Possible return to square one |
| Enforcement (bailiff) | 5-day notice min.; no eviction Dec 24–Jan 2 | Additional delays + fees |
🎭 Devil's advocate
Let's be honest: the other side has real arguments, and they deserve to be faced head-on. First, eviction is a serious measure — losing your home in the middle of a housing crisis, with a very low vacancy rate on the North Shore, can push a person or a family toward homelessness. The TAT's protections, including the rule that suspends the eviction if the tenant pays everything before the decision, exist precisely to avoid putting someone on the street over a one-off, good-faith delay. That is not absurd: most tenants in difficulty are not fraudsters, they are people going through a rough patch.
Next, the delays are not malice: they stem from an underfunded, overwhelmed tribunal, not from an anti-landlord conspiracy. Tenant-advocacy groups rightly point out that a fast, expeditious system would risk producing unjust evictions, without serious examination of the file. The slowness, as costly as it is for the landlord, is in part the price of genuine judicial review. And the winter truce (December 24 to January 2) responds to a humanitarian logic that is hard to dispute.
Finally, a diligent landlord has tools: rigorous tenant screening, clear leases, swift action from the 21st day, a well-built file. Some of the "horror stories" also come from landlords who let things drag. In short, the system is not solely to blame.
The verdict
After weighing both sides, our position remains clear but nuanced: tenant protections are legitimate; the delays that come with them are not. You can protect the good-faith tenant without turning the small landlord into a captive creditor for nine months. The real problem is not the substantive law — it is the chronic congestion of a tribunal that lacks the means to rule quickly.
For a North Shore plex owner, the lesson is pragmatic. First, don't wait: from the 21st day of delay, build an airtight file and file. Second, keep your leases and proof of payment impeccable — rigour speeds everything up. Third, if a file drags on and threatens your real profitability, know that a multi-unit property with a problem tenant still sells — to a buyer who knows how to manage that risk, not to the first bank-financed buyer who will heavily discount the problem. The same logic applies when you face a contested renoviction on the North Shore: better to act early and regain control of your capital than to be subject to someone else's calendar.
A plex with a tenant who has stopped paying?ImmoMulti buys North Shore multi-unit properties even with an open TAT file — no broker, no commission. →
