evictions Archives - Canadian Centre for Housing Rights

Changes to Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act came into effect this week, affecting several areas of rental law, including landlord’s own-use evictions, renovictions, rent arrears and the powers of the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB).

Some of the changes introduce stronger protections or greater clarity for tenants. Others raise serious concerns about whether tenants will have a fair opportunity to defend their housing.

Here’s what you need to know.

Landlord’s Own Use Evictions

If your landlord wants to evict you in order to move in themselves, and they give you at least 120 days’ notice, they no longer need to provide you with 1 month of rent in compensation. However, if they give between 60 and 120 days’ notice, they still need to compensate you. Less than 60 days’ notice, or a notice for a day other than the day you normally pay rent, isn’t allowed.

If you do move out because the landlord says they want to move in, and the landlord doesn’t move in after 2 months, the Landlord and Tenant Board may be more likely to find they evicted you in bad faith.

Renovictions

If you have been evicted so the landlord can do renovations, landlords now need to provide you with information on when you should be able to return and provide you with at least 60 days to return once renovations are complete. You now have 2 years to file an application against your landlord (or 6 months after the renovation is complete) if they do not allow you to return.

Arrears

If you are behind on rent, and your landlord serves you with a N4 notice to end your tenancy because of rent arrears, you now only have 7 days to pay the landlord what is owed before the landlord can file an application at the LTB. If there is a LTB hearing about your arrears, and you want to explain that you withheld rent because the landlord was not living up to their responsibilities, you will now have to pay half of what the landlord claimed in their L1 application and notify the landlord and the LTB 7 days before your hearing.

Other changes

The RTA has been changed to specify that persistently late rent is rent that’s paid over 7 days late 3 times in a 6-month period. The LTB’s discretion to delay the enforcement of an eviction order, or set aside an eviction order, has been limited.

While CCHR supports the added clarity brough to Renovictions, the changes to how arrears of rent are treated will lead to greater confusion and unjust evictions.

Over the coming weeks, CCHR will continue to unpack these changes, what they mean for tenants, and how they may affect tenants’ ability to exercise their rights.

Evictions can push people into housing instability, homelessness and poverty. Yet across Canada, eviction is often treated as an inevitable outcome rather than a last resort.

A new publication by Balanced Supply of Housing, Evictions in Canada: The Impact of Evictions on Security of Tenure and the Right to Housing, brings together researchers from across the country to examine the growing impact of evictions on renters and communities.

The collection explores:

The relationship between evictions and the right to housing
The lived experiences of people facing eviction
Eviction decision-making and tenant protections
Above-guideline rent increases and financialization
Eviction trends in the Greater Toronto Area and Metro Vancouver
Policy recommendations to strengthen security of tenure across Canada

Among the contributors is CCHR’s Director of Policy, Research & Law Reform, Margaret Flynn, who co-authored Chapter 3 with Sarah Buhler: Evictions as a First Resort? Proportionality and Discretion in Saskatchewan Eviction Decisions.

The chapter examines 1,906 Saskatchewan eviction cases involving rental arrears and found that eviction was ordered in 99.27% of cases. The research raises important questions about whether existing legal protections are being meaningfully applied and whether sufficient consideration is being given to alternatives that could help renters remain housed.

Most tenants who received eviction orders owed less than two months’ rent
– Chapter 3: Evictions as a First Resort? Proportionality and Discretion in Saskatchewan Eviction Decisions

At a time when governments across Canada are grappling with housing affordability and rising homelessness, this publication offers important evidence on the role eviction plays in housing instability and what can be done to better protect renters.

Read the publication

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