Bill 31: what changed in Quebec leases since 2024

"Loi 31" is Bill 31, which became the Act to amend various legislative provisions with respect to housing, sanctioned on 21 February 2024 and published as 2024, chapter 2. It amended several articles of the Civil Code of Québec governing residential leases.

It drew a lot of commentary, much of it wrong: you will read that it "abolished lease assignment", which is not accurate. This page walks through the real changes, article by article, separating what changed from what stayed exactly as it was.

The articles actually amended

Bill 31 touches a limited number of Civil Code articles on residential leases. Here they are, with what each one changed:

• Article 1896: punitive damages added, tied to the lowest-rent notice (section G)
• Article 1955: rent-fixing conditions for certain dwellings
• Article 1963: the landlord must obtain the court's authorization, for eviction as well as repossession
• Article 1965: the eviction indemnity completely rebuilt
• Article 1966: repealed
• Article 1968: the burden of proof on damages reversed
• Articles 1978.1 and 1978.2: new articles on lease assignment

The biggest change: the eviction indemnity

Before Bill 31, article 1965 set a flat indemnity: three months' rent, plus reasonable moving expenses. A tenant evicted after twenty years received exactly what a tenant evicted after two years received.

Now article 1965 provides reasonable moving expenses as well as an indemnity equal to one month's rent for each year of uninterrupted lease of the dwelling by the tenant. That indemnity may not exceed 24 months' rent, nor be less than 3 months. A tenant who considers the injury suffered warrants more can still apply to the court to have the amount fixed.

For a long-standing tenant the gap is dramatic: where the law guaranteed three months, it can now guarantee up to twenty-four. The three-month floor protects recent tenants, and seniority counts in complete years of uninterrupted lease.

Eviction: silence no longer counts as consent

This is the least understood change, because it rests on a deleted article. The former article 1966 required a tenant to apply to the court within one month of receiving an eviction notice in order to oppose it, failing which the tenant was deemed to have consented to leave. Silence cost you the apartment. That article is now repealed.

Article 1963 takes over, and it shifts the load to the other side. Where the tenant refuses to leave, it is for the landlord to apply for the court's authorization, within one month of the refusal. The landlord must then show a genuine intention to repossess the dwelling or evict the tenant for the purpose stated in the notice, that this is not a pretext for other ends, and, in the case of an eviction, that the law permits dividing the dwelling, enlarging it substantially or changing its destination.

Before Bill 31, article 1963 covered repossession only. It now covers both repossession and eviction. In practice, a tenant who receives an eviction notice and does not want to go no longer has a mandatory step to take within the month: refusing is enough, and it falls to the landlord to go to the tribunal.

Damages: the burden switches sides

The former article 1968 let a tenant recover damages resulting from a repossession or eviction obtained in bad faith. The tenant therefore had to establish the landlord's bad faith, which is hard when the evidence sits with the other party.

The current article reverses the presumption: the tenant may recover damages resulting from a repossession or eviction, whether or not the tenant consented to it, unless the landlord proves it was done in good faith. Punitive damages, by contrast, still require the tenant to demonstrate bad faith.

Lease assignment: what genuinely changed

Contrary to a great deal of what was written, Bill 31 did not repeal the right to assign a lease. Articles 1870 and 1871 are unchanged since 1991: a tenant may assign the lease by notifying the landlord and obtaining consent, and the landlord may not refuse without a serious reason, failing which the reasons must be given within 15 days or consent is deemed given.

What Bill 31 did was add two articles. Article 1978.1 requires the assignment notice, where it concerns a lease of a dwelling, to state the date of assignment fixed by the tenant. Article 1978.2 creates a new outcome: a landlord notified of an intention to assign may refuse consent for a reason other than a serious one, and the lease is then resiliated on the assignment date stated in the notice.

That novelty has to be read both ways. For a landlord it offers a route to recover the dwelling rather than inherit an assignee, which is the reading that fuelled the alarm. For a tenant who simply wants out, the practical result is release on the date they themselves wrote into the notice, without having to find a taker. Either way, everything rests on the date in the notice and on being able to prove when it was received.

Section G and punitive damages

Article 1896 has long required a landlord, when the lease is entered into, to give the new tenant a notice stating the lowest rent paid during the 12 months before the lease began. That is section G of the mandatory lease form, the one many landlords leave blank.

Bill 31 attached a sanction to it: if the notice contains a misrepresentation, or the landlord knowingly fails to give it, the tenant may demand that the landlord be ordered to pay punitive damages. It is the main rent-transparency lever added in 2024, and it works alongside article 1950, which lets a new tenant have the rent fixed by the tribunal.

The pairing is worth knowing: where section G was left blank, the window to have the rent fixed stretches from 10 days to two months from the start of the lease. A landlord who leaves the box empty does not escape review, they widen it.

What Bill 31 did not change

The non-changes deserve as much attention as the changes, because that is where most of the misinformation lives:

• The right to remain in the dwelling (article 1936) is intact
• Automatic renewal of the lease (article 1941) and the notice periods (articles 1942 and 1946) are unchanged
• The right to assign a lease or sublet (article 1870) was not abolished
• The 15-day rule and the landlord's deemed consent (article 1871) survive
• The prohibition on security deposits (article 1904) is unchanged
• The grounds for termination by a tenant (articles 1974 and 1974.1) were not touched by Bill 31

Frequently asked questions