Executive Summary: Key Legal and Evidentiary Issues

• Applicability of the Quebec Consumer Protection Act (LPC) to a bailiff’s professional services contract for enforcing a rental eviction judgment.
• Characterization of the bailiff’s work as a non-commercial activity governed by professional regulation and statutory tariffs rather than consumer law.
• Sufficiency of the bailiff’s pre-mandate cost information and ongoing explanations under the Code of ethics of bailiffs.
• Evidentiary weight of the written professional services agreement, execution reports and invoices in proving the legitimacy and quantum of fees.
• Allocation of responsibility for eviction-related enforcement costs as between landlord and evicted tenant, in light of the signed mandate.
• Assessment of the landlord’s objections to particular disbursements (notably locksmith services) and their reasonableness given the services specifically requested.

Facts of the case

Étude Daniel Jean Huissier inc. (“Étude Daniel Jean”) is a bailiff’s office mandated by landlord John Stamegna to enforce an eviction order issued by the Tribunal administratif du logement (TAL) against Mr. Stamegna’s tenant. The mandate concerned the forced execution of the TAL’s decision, including arranging and carrying out the eviction. To formalize the mandate, on 6 October 2023 Mr. Stamegna signed a “professional services agreement and disbursements” (the Contract, exhibit P-6), which the court characterizes as a contract of enterprise or for services under article 2098 of the Civil Code of Québec. The Contract obliged the bailiff to provide services for a price Mr. Stamegna undertook to pay.
The services rendered by Étude Daniel Jean included the steps necessary to physically remove the tenant: service of documents, locksmith services, travel, obtaining the court’s authorization to use necessary force if required, and the time spent on site to complete the eviction process. These steps and their sequencing were detailed in the bailiff’s execution reports (procès-verbaux, exhibit P-1), which also support the invoices submitted (exhibit P-2).
After the eviction was carried out on 23 November 2023, Étude Daniel Jean billed Mr. Stamegna a total of 1,620.55 $ in fees and disbursements for its work in enforcing the TAL decision. The landlord refused to pay, prompting the bailiff’s office to sue in the Small Claims Division of the Court of Québec to recover its professional fees, disbursements and court costs.

Defence arguments and legal framework

In contesting the claim, Mr. Stamegna advanced three principal arguments. First, he maintained that, as a consumer, he should be protected by the Loi sur la protection du consommateur (LPC) and that the bailiff’s practice should be treated as a commercial activity subject to consumer law safeguards. Second, he alleged that Étude Daniel Jean breached its duty of information under the Code of ethics of bailiffs by failing to provide an estimate of enforcement costs and by inadequately explaining the invoices. Third, he argued that the eviction costs should in any event be borne by the evicted tenant, not by him as landlord, and further suggested he could have found locksmith services at a lower cost.
The court began by situating bailiffs within the regulatory framework of the Code des professions, the Act respecting bailiffs and the Code of ethics of bailiffs. Bailiffs are officers of justice, and their fees for executing court decisions are governed by a specific Tariff of fees for bailiffs as well as minimum professional fees set by their professional order. For enforcement work such as executing an eviction order of the TAL, bailiffs may only claim the fees and disbursements permitted by this tariff and framework, which strictly regulates what they can charge.

Consumer protection and commercial activity

On the LPC issue, the court examined whether a bailiff’s enforcement services fall within the notion of a commercial activity carried out by a “merchant” for profit within the meaning of consumer protection law. The decision relies on doctrinal commentary explaining that contracts for the services of professionals governed by the Code des professions are generally excluded from the ambit of the LPC, provided these professionals meet certain criteria under the theory of commerciality and can qualify as non-merchants.
To be considered commercial under that theory, an activity must be pursued in a profit-making or speculative perspective, among other cumulative criteria. In the case of bailiffs executing court decisions, their fees and costs are largely dictated by law and professional tariffs, which severely limit any speculative or entrepreneurial pricing. The court concludes that the enforcement of the TAL eviction order by Étude Daniel Jean does not constitute a commercial activity, and that, in this context, the bailiff cannot be characterized as a merchant for the purposes of the LPC. As a result, the LPC does not apply to the professional services contract between the bailiff and Mr. Stamegna.

Duty to inform and ethical obligations of the bailiff

The court then analysed whether Étude Daniel Jean complied with its duty of information under article 36 of the Code of ethics of bailiffs, which requires a bailiff to ensure that the client is informed of the approximate and foreseeable cost of professional services. The evidence showed that the bailiff explained to Mr. Stamegna that it was not realistically possible to provide a reliable advance estimate of the full enforcement costs for an eviction. Variables such as the time it would take to carry out the eviction, the possible need to call in the police if the tenant resisted, and the time needed for movers or other logistics made the total cost inherently unpredictable.
The Contract itself expressly stated that it is often difficult to predict the amount of work required, the steps necessary to fulfil the mandate and the ultimate bill, which may end up higher or lower than any initial forecast. It also confirmed that the client had read and approved the service request and agreed to pay the full bill, including disbursements, upon receipt of the invoice. Additionally, the court noted that bailiffs’ fees and expenses are public and set by law, further supporting the transparency of the pricing framework.
Regarding explanations of invoices, the court found that the only element for which Mr. Stamegna requested clarification was a specific sum of 879.73 $, which was already thoroughly detailed in the bailiff’s execution report. The procès-verbaux (exhibit P-1) provided a detailed account of each enforcement step taken during the eviction and directly correlated with the amounts appearing on the invoices (exhibit P-2). In light of this documentation, the court considered it difficult to see what further explanations could reasonably be required. It therefore held that Étude Daniel Jean had provided adequate information on both the foreseeability of costs and the breakdown of invoiced services.

Responsibility for enforcement costs and contractual obligations

The court next addressed who should ultimately bear the enforcement costs. By signing the professional services agreement, Mr. Stamegna, as client, undertook to pay the price of the services requested from the bailiff. The court emphasized that his contractual obligation was to pay the fees and expenses associated with the services he specifically mandated. His argument that the evicted tenant should bear these costs did not, in the court’s view, relieve him of his primary obligation toward the bailiff under the Contract. Any subsequent recourse he might have against the tenant did not affect the bailiff’s right to be paid by its client.
Similarly, the contention that cheaper locksmith services might have been available elsewhere did not persuade the court. If Mr. Stamegna wished to control that expense, he should have inquired about locksmith fees in advance or arranged his own locksmith, rather than expressly mandating the bailiff to handle the lock change as part of the eviction process. Having requested and accepted that service from Étude Daniel Jean, he was bound to pay the corresponding cost fixed within the applicable professional and statutory framework.

Outcome and monetary orders

Ultimately, the Court of Québec’s Small Claims Division held that Étude Daniel Jean had established the validity and reasonableness of its claim for fees and disbursements in the amount of 1,620.55 $ for enforcing the TAL eviction order. The court rejected all of Mr. Stamegna’s defences, finding that the LPC did not apply, that the bailiff had complied with its ethical duty to inform, and that the client remained contractually bound to pay for the services he had requested.
In its formal disposition, the court allowed the action, condemned defendant John Stamegna (spelled “Stagmena” in the operative part) to pay 1,620.55 $ in favour of Étude Daniel Jean Huissier inc., with legal interest and the additional indemnity provided by article 1619 of the Civil Code of Québec from 1 March 2024, and awarded 182 $ in court costs. Taken together, the fixed monetary amounts ordered in favour of the successful party total 1,802.55 $, with the precise additional sums for interest and the article 1619 indemnity not determinable from the judgment text.