The Landlord and Tenant Board form N8 notice can be served for this reason.  You need to document or record a pattern of 7-8 late payment instances in some way  (preferably with the N4 notice). 

If there is a fixed term tenancy agreement,  it can only be served at the end of the lease term and must coincide with last day of tenancy.

The Residential Tenancies Act does not set out a specific number of times that the tenant would have to be late with the rent before a landlord can seek eviction as the Board adjudicator will make this determination. However, our usual advice in this situation is to wait at least until you have served the tenant with the notice of non-payment of rent seven or eight times during the period of one year. Also, if you have a fixed term tenancy agreement (lease), the legislation does not permit you to seek early termination of that agreement if the grounds are persistent late rental payments.

When the tenant does not pay the rent or only makes a partial payment, the notice you would serve is a Form N4 which gives the tenant fourteen days to pay or move out, this is under section 59 of the Residential Tenancies Act. If the tenant is persistently late in paying the rent you should serve the Form N4 each time the rent is not paid on the due date. Eventually after serving several of the N4’s then you would serve the tenant with a Form N8 which is the notice of termination based on persistent late payment of rent, section 58. If there is a fixed term tenancy agreement,  it can only be served at the end of the lease term and must coincide with last day of tenancy. You can obtain all the forms and more detailed information on the procedures from the Landlord and Tenant Board’s website at https://tribunalsontario.ca/ltb/forms/#landlord-forms.

The law does not set out a specific number of times that the tenant would have to be late in order to be evicted. It is still up to a Board adjudicator to make the decision but our usual advice is to wait at least until you have served the tenant with the notice of non-payment of rent seven or eight times during the period of one year before seeking termination for this reason. If you have a fixed term tenancy agreement (lease), the notice cannot terminate before the lease expires. Therefore, the earliest you can secure termination of the tenant based on persistent late rental payment is at the end of the lease.

Yes, you can. However, if your tenants are always late paying the rent, you should be serving them with the notice of non-payment of rent (Form N4) which gives them fourteen days to pay the arrears. If they do not pay within that time or make only a partial payment then you can apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board after the fourteen days are up. However, if they do pay up you will have to wait until the next time they are late and serve the N4 again. You may have to do this several times before attempting to evict them based on persistent late payment of rent, at which point you would serve a Form N8.

Since there is a fixed term agreement, the tenancy cannot be terminated based on persistent late payments until the end of the lease term. In the meantime, unless the tenant agrees to vacate earlier, all you can do is keep serving the N4 notice each time rent is late. You can serve notice a minimum 60 days prior to the end of the agreement on Form N8 based on persistent late payment. Ensure copies are kept of every notice you serve to support your application to the Landlord and Tenant Board.

It’s very frustrating for a landlord who is dealing with tenants not paying their rent on time, but unfortunately the only thing that can be done is issuing the N4 notice whenever the rent is not paid on the due date. If the tenant pays the rent, then you basically have to wait until the next time it happens and serve her again. Eventually after serving several N4’s you may serve a notice to terminate based on persistent late payments (form N8), but it’s not easy to evict a tenant for this reason. The Board will usually give the tenant another opportunity to start paying rent on time and issue a payment plan.

If you need the unit for your stepfather to move in, that would be a valid reason to terminate the tenancy. In this case you could serve the tenant with a form N12, giving them 60 days to terminate at the end of the rental period. However, the tenant could still refuse to move out, in which case you will have to file an application with the Landlord and Tenant Board to go to a hearing for the Board to decide. You will have to pay the tenant one month’s rent as compensation or offer them another unit acceptable to them, and the person who will be moving in will have to swear an Affidavit stating their intentions to move in to the unit. Visit the Board’s website for more information on the procedures and to obtain the forms, https://tribunalsontario.ca/ltb/forms/#landlord-forms.

If the tenant files a bad faith application based on the N12, effective September 1, 2021, the tenant can get an order against you for the following: an order to pay the former tenant an amount of increased rent for up to 1 year, an amount of up to 12 months’ rent charged to the former tenant, an amount for reasonable out-of-pocket expenses, landlord pay to the Board an administrative fine not exceeding the greater of $10,000 and the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court, and other penalties as deemed appropriate by the adjudicator.

The first thing you need to know is that you should not use up the last month’s rent deposit, that is only applied when there is confirmation that the tenant is moving out. What you have to do is serve the tenant a notice of non-payment of rent which is the N4 Form. This notice gives him 14 days to pay the outstanding rent; if he fails to pay within that time period then you’ll have to file an L1 application, along with a Certificate of Service with the Landlord and Tenant Board to go to a hearing and obtain an eviction order based in the arrears of rent. The forms can be obtained from the Board’s website at https://tribunalsontario.ca/ltb/forms/.

If the tenant is not paying her rent on time, a landlord can serve the tenant with a Form N4 – Notice to Terminate a Tenancy for Non-Payment of Rent whenever a rent payment is late. The notice is void once the rent is paid however this is the best way to document the late payments which can eventually be a reason to terminate her tenancy.

With regards to late rental payments, we usually suggest that once you have served the tenant with at least seven or eight N4’s then you can issue a notice of termination based on persistent late payment of rent which is a Form N8. This notice must be 60 days’ notice terminating on the last day of the rental period. Once you have issued the notice, you may apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board anytime within the 60 day period if you think the tenant will not leave according to the notice. To apply to the Board you will need to file the L2 Application along with a Certificate of Service. All the forms can be obtained from the Board’s website at https://tribunalsontario.ca/ltb/forms/.

You should also search through Board decisions posted to CanLII, https://www.canlii.org/en/on/onltb/, for dealing  late payment of rent cases to get an idea on how the Board deals with this issue.

The Residential Tenancies Act does not allow landlords to charge tenants a late payment fee, even if it is stated in the lease agreement.