Élodie Fortuné has taped a note to her front door — and she’s hoping it will stop workers from entering her apartment.
It reads, “The landlord has no legal authorization to enter or perform work here.”
Fortuné’s landlords want to change the heating system from centralized gas to electricity. But she believes that by doing so, the owners of the building would be changing the conditions of her lease.
Fortuné lives in one of the Norgate apartments, a grouping of more than 70 buildings along a stretch of Décarie Boulevard and Ouimet Street in Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough.
Her lease still says the owners cover the cost of hot water and heating, but once the heating system is renovated, all those expenses will end up on her hydro bill.
“My rent represents three-quarters of my budget,” she says.
“If this work takes place … so that when all is said and done I have exorbitant bills, what will I do?”
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A group of private investors bought the units in 2024 under the name Norgate Québec Inc. The Comité logement Saint-Laurent, an organization that advocates for tenants’ rights in the borough, says many of the units are occupied by immigrants and recent newcomers to Quebec.
In an email, a spokesperson for Norgate and the company that manages the buildings, Gestion Capital Montréal, says that the current heating and hot water systems are obsolete and need to be replaced.
“For leases that include heating and hot water, Norgate reimburses the additional Hydro-Québec electricity cost, based on a comparison with the same period the year before,” says Nicolas Sima, with Gestion Capital Montréal.
The Norgate apartments include dozens of buildings along a stretch of Décarie Boulevard and Ouimet Street. (Sharon Yonan-Renold/CBC)
CBC spoke to several residents who said they were concerned about the installation of the new heating system and the reimbursement structure.
Some residents are stopping workers from installing the new system in their apartments, with some even losing their hot water or heating in the process.
The Comité logement Saint-Laurent says many residents have lost trust in the new owners. This summer, dozens of tenants contested what they called excessive rent increases.
Maria Vasquez, the committee’s general director, says she’s been helping roughly 200 Norgate residents who are resisting the heating changes. She says during lease renewals, the owners also tried to make residents responsible for all heating and hot water costs.
Maria Vasquez says that the owners are trying to force the residents to accept the changes. (Sharon Yonan-Renold/CBC)
She says while the owners are waiting for Quebec’s housing board, the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) to rule on those cases, they shouldn’t be carrying out the work.
“This is changing your contract, and this needs to be a tribunal decision,” says Vasquez.
She argues that alternatively, the owners would need to reach an official agreement with tenants on the reimbursement structure.
Vasquez says that the buildings’ managers are telling tenants that workers need to install individual water heaters and electric baseboards heaters, as they decommission the centralized system, saying that if workers aren’t allowed in, tenants could lose access to heating and hot water.
In some cases, Vasquez says, building managers have threatened to charge residents $500 a day if workers are not allowed in.
“You see the intimidation here to make them to accept this,” says Vasquez.
Fortuné adds that the building managers are also telling tenants that many of them will need to empty a closet to make room for the new water heaters, taking away crucial storage space.
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Sima denies that the owners are intimidating tenants. He argues that they aren’t changing the conditions of people’s leases, so the company doesn’t need approval from the TAL to carry out the work.
Sima adds that when a resident has been duly notified of the work and still doesn’t allow access to their unit, the company may seek to recover damages.
“To be able to claim them, we must mention them in our formal notices and in our applications to the Tribunal administratif du logement,” he explains.
Sima says that the management company is offering to install a cabinet or shelving to make up for the lost storage. Still, Fortuné says that won’t change the square footage of her apartment.
According to housing lawyer David Searle, what the law says on the topic isn’t exactly black and white.
He says that tenants do have the option to contest major work, within 10 days of being notified. He says otherwise, tenants must allow building owners to carry out work in their units.
Searle says if tenants believe their landlord is not respecting the conditions of their lease, they can ask the TAL to intervene, but the board might not be able to stop the work from happening.
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“It would require research to look into how this specific situation has been treated before,” explains Searle.
“On the one hand, one can understand where they’re coming from. They have this expectation of a lease being breached. On the other hand, one can also expect that if they complain about their lack of heating [or hot water] they’re going to be confronted with their own lack of collaboration,” he says.
But the Coalition of Housing Committees and Tenants Associations of Quebec (RCLALQ) says residents are right to be upset over the proposed reimbursement system. Community organizer Jean-Christophe Bureau argues that it creates a power imbalance.
“If the renter isn’t happy or does not reach the same calculation as the owner, the owner has the power to reimburse them or not,” says Bureau.
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Fortuné says that the stress of the situation is weighing heavily on her.
“This is the first time in the 16 years I’ve been in Quebec that I’ve had this knot in my stomach,” she says.
She says she’ll keep fighting for her rights as a tenant and to maintain her lease conditions.
“If the idea is to change the terms in a way that ends up increasing my rent even further — well, no.”
