Facing an Eviction
Are you covered by the Residential Tenancies Act?
Please note that the information on this page is for tenants covered under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), specifically those who live in for-profit rental housing. You may be excluded from all or parts of the Residential Tenancies Act if you live in social housing, non-profit housing, co-operative housing, a student dormitory, a shelter, a jail/prison, or a care home. If you share a kitchen or bathroom with your landlord or a landlord's close family member, you are likely exempt from the RTA (unless the landlord moved in after you moved in).
My landlord wants to evict me. What can I do?
Don’t panic. An eviction is not a quick process! For an eviction to be legal, it must be authorized by the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB). If your landlord is telling you that you have to move out without an eviction order from the LTB, you can refuse.
This includes cases where you have been served an N4, N5, N7, N8, N12, or N13 form. If you are served one of these forms, this counts as a legal notice of eviction. However, a legal notice with one of these forms is NOT the same as an authorized eviction order. The landlord sometimes will serve one of these forms as an intimidation tactic, with no intention of filing an LTB eviction application.
Even if you are given one of the forms above, you do not need to leave by the date on the eviction notice! If you decide not to leave, the landlord must pay to file an LTB application. If they choose to do this, then a hearing with the LTB will likely be scheduled. This will likely take many months.
However, there are two circumstances where an eviction order from the LTB can be issued without a hearing: when the tenant agreed to move out on a specific date or gave notice to move out on a specific date, or when a tenant doesn’t meet the terms of a mediated agreement or order. In both cases, you can challenge the eviction order, but you must do so within 10 calendar days from when the order was issued.
It is very important that you attend an eviction hearing if one is scheduled. Contact Legal Aid Ontario if you have received a notice of eviction, a notice of eviction hearing, or if you believe your landlord will be filing an application for eviction.
Once the hearing is completed, the LTB may order an eviction, in which case you will be sent an eviction order. In cases where the eviction results from unpaid money owed to the landlord, you will likely be given a time frame to pay the charge or rent owed to avoid eviction (usually 11 days). If you can’t pay, the order will become active, and the landlord can take it to the enforcement office. The enforcement office will send you a courtesy notice telling you the order has been filed. However, they will not evict you for approximately 2-3 weeks (or even longer) after the landlord has filed the application with the sheriff. Up until the sheriff comes to evict you, you are still able to pay what you owe and stay in the apartment.
If the landlord has issued you an illegal charge, you do not have to pay it and the landlord cannot evict you for this. If the landlord attempts to evict you for refusing to pay, you can fight the illegal charge at an eviction hearing.
For more information, please see
this excellent post from the Federation of Metro Tenants' Associations on evictions and how they work.