Last week Toronto City Council approved recommendations to create a new by-law regulating short-term stays in Toronto. We blogged earlier about the recommended regulations. Here is a quick summary of the major points City Council adopted:
- Short-term rentals (less than 28 consecutive days) are only permitted in the principal residence of an owner or tenant (called “operators”). An operator can only have one principal residence;
- Short-term rentals of an entire unit are limited to a maximum of 180 nights per year;
- People who offer short-term rentals in their home will be required to sign up with the City of Toronto’s short-term rental registry, pay an annual fee of $50, and update the registry with the number of nights their unit is rented;
- Short-term rental platforms will have to obtain a license from the City of Toronto and pay an annual fee of $5000 in addition to a $1 fee per night booked on that platform;
- The regulations are scheduled to come into effect on June 1, 2018.
What does this mean for condominium owners and condominium corporations?
In buildings that permit short-term rentals, these new regulations will prohibit investor-owned units that are regularly rented out for short-terms. In other words, owners who don’t use a unit as their principal residence will be prohibited from renting their unit(s) for less than 28 consecutive days.
Even if a condominium corporation’s governing documents permit owners to rent their units for an unlimited number of days in a year, owners will have to comply with municipal regulations once they come into force.
It’s important to note that the new rules do not allow short-term rentals in condominiums where the corporation’s governing documents prohibit them.
Operators will have to provide information about themselves and their unit to the City’s short-term rental registry, including their name, address, an emergency contact, the building type, and potentially other information. They will also have to keep the registry updated with the number of nights per year that their unit is rented for short-term stays.
The registration number operators receive from the registry will have to appear in every advertisement for their unit.
Violating these rules could mean a fine of up to $100,000.
It is not clear whether the City’s registry will be public, so it’s unclear whether condominium corporations where short-term stays are prohibited will be able to check the registry to see whether units in their building are being advertised.
Condominium corporations that permit short-term stays should inform owners and residents of these new rules before they come into effect to allow everyone enough time to bring their units into compliance by the time these rules come into effect.
