Short-term rental deadline looms with city registrations falling short

Citynews.ca
Dec. 21, 2020
Mark McAllister

The number of short-term rental properties registered with the City of Toronto is falling short of expectations, with just two weeks to go before the Dec. 31 deadline.

Based on a bylaw passed by city council earlier this year, owners renting homes or rooms for periods of less than 28 consecutive days must be registered to continue operating. Otherwise, they can be fined $1,000 or more, as well as the company listing the space.

“There’s no official grace period,” said the city’s executive director of municipal licensing and standards, Carleton Grant. “It’s January 1 but we work with the companies and they have agreed to remove those who aren’t.”

As of Dec. 18, the city had only received 2,332 short-term rental registrations. Airbnb, the most prominent platform in Toronto, has more than 23,500 properties listed. That amounts to just 10 per cent of the space for rent on that site alone.

The lower number may be due to fewer hosts willing to rent during the pandemic, according to Grant. Open-source data from the website Inside Airbnb shows nearly half of the company’s listings have ‘year-round’ availability.

“It remains to be seen what Airbnb does,” said Thorben Wieditz from Fairbnb Canada. “If they are true to their word and block all these listings with no registration numbers, I’m sure those hosts will reaching out to the city very quickly to get everything set up.”

CityNews requested comment from Airbnb but didn’t receive a response. The company is the only platform that has officially received a license, while city officials continue working with two others.