Family faces Airbnb home eviction

Booking abruptly cancelled in middle of 10-month stay

When Tianning Ning and her family found a home in a quiet neighbourhood near Yonge and St. Clair they could book on Airbnb for the 10 months her husband would be a visiting professor at York University, it seemed perfect.

The comfortable four-bedroom house, near good schools for their kids, proved ideal, until Ning says their landlord abruptly pulled the plug on their booking earlier in January, cancelling it at the end of the month.

“I was extremely angry, and I think it’s just not right,” Ning said in a recent interview.

“We’ve been here for half a year and our children have gotten used to it, and we’ve organized our lives around it.”

This kind of “mid-to-long-term” Airbnb stay is becoming more common in Toronto, with at least12,000 listed on the site, leaving tenants vulnerable to the whims of hosts, and operating outside of formal leases in a shadow rental market. They are not part of the city’s shortterm rental regulations, as listings for more than 28 days are excluded, a loophole which advocates say is open to abuse.

In response to questions, the owner of 69 Walmsley Blvd., Suzanne Porter, said in a text message she is “unable to respond at this time.” She added, “the matter is currently being handled by Airbnb to bring it to a resolution.”

Coming from Switzerland, Ning and her family needed flexibility to stay for just two academic semesters and lacked the Canadian credit scores to break into the traditional rental market.

Ning said she booked a roughly 10-month stay, from late summer 2022 until the end of June 2023, through Airbnb for the price of $5,150 a month, before taxes and service fees.

But in early January, according to Ning and screenshots of messages she provided, Porter sent them notice saying she needed to move back into the property with her own family, and the visitors would need to leave by the end of the month. The listing was then changed to end on Jan 31.

After a back and forth with Airbnb, which she also provided screenshots from, Ning said she was told the booking was terminated due to an emergency. Airbnb offered a voucher and suggested another listing10 km away, she said.

In response to a list of questions, an Airbnb spokesperson said in an email: “Cancellations like this are rare, but when they do happen we’re committed to supporting our guests. Our customer service team is in contact with this guest and providing ongoing support, including with rebooking.”

Under Toronto’s new short term rental rules that came into play in early 2021 (in an effort to regulate Airbnb and other similar sites), listings need to be registered and must be principal residences. But homes rented for longer than 28 days are exempt. Staff are aware of an estimated 12,000 of them listed on Airbnb across the city, said spokesperson Ashika Theyyil.

Those new rules mean that listings that aren’t principal residences were dumped into the 28-day plus category, said Thorben Wieditz, director of advocacy group Fairbnb Canada.

This has created a medium term rental market that is a growing concern for advocates like him.

“In a tight housing market like Toronto’s, where it’s very difficult to even find an available unit, Airbnb may become a mediator between landlords and tenants,” Wieditz said.

This caters to landlords who don’t want any strings attached and “hope they can just end the tenancy by the click of a mouse,” he added.“We need to figure out how to deal with this and how to close this legal grey area and make people aware of their rights.”

City staff were supposed to report back to council on what to do about these listings of more than 28 days in April 2022, but this didn’t materialize. Instead, city spokesperson Theyyil says an update is expected by the end of 2023.

Geordie Dent, executive director of the Federation of Metro Tenants’ Associations, said they started receiving calls about these kind of cancellations of mid-to-long-term stays on sites like Airbnb with “increasing frequency” at the start of the pandemic, and now get about one a week.

He said they would be covered under the Residential Tenancies Act, and landlords would need to follow the proper channels for eviction, under limited circumstances. But many tenants might not realize their rights under this situation. Indeed, illegal and fraudulent eviction is the “most important issue” their organization is facing.

As for Ning, she wants other tenants to know about her situation to warn them about this “significant policy loophole,” especially newcomers to Canada who she feels are particularly at risk.

Other comparable properties in the neighbourhood, which would allow her kids to stay enrolled at local schools, are far more expensive, she said. She has no plans to leave.

“We have our rights to stay, there’s no doubt about it, so we will stay.”

12,000 mid-to-longterm Airbnb listings in Toronto could be ended with ‘the click of a mouse,’ warn housing advocates