Appealing decisions of the Administrative Housing Tribunal: a time limit with variable geometry

This text aims to highlight the weaknesses of the mechanism for appealing AHT decisions, provided for in the Act respecting the Administrative Housing Tribunal. It emphasizes the consequences of these weaknesses in the current context of housing shortages and soaring rental prices. Two axes drive this reflection. The first is based on the characteristics of the leave to appeal mechanism since a reform of the Act in 1997. The contours of this procedure, explicitly designed by the legislator to limit the number of appeals, are thereby analyzed. Secondly, the text examines the case law divide that has developed over the last two decades around the question of calculating the time for filing appeals. A critical discussion ensues on each of both schools of thought. The text then examines the important change in case law that occurred last year and its real-life consequences.