Frequently Asked Questions

Your first stop for self-help is a review of our FAQs. Take a look at the ever increasing collection of questions asked by Ontario’s small-scale landlords as well as the actual answers provided by Landlord’s Self-Help Centre.

Tenants are allowed to have guests. If the tenants in your building are inviting, or allowing the former superintendent onto the property that is not considered trespassing and you have no say in the matter. However, if there are pending criminal proceedings, restraining orders, peace bonds or bail conditions that may be preventing him from accessing the property, then that is not really a landlord and tenant matter, and is therefore beyond the scope of our mandate. Perhaps you should consult a criminal lawyer in such circumstances.

The only thing you may be able to do at this point is increase the rent but this depends on how long the tenant has been living there because you can only increase the rent once every twelve months. In order to increase the rent you would have to give her 90 days notice using a prescribed form which is a Form N1, and increase it by the guideline amount for this year. As for asking her to leave, the N12 can only be served if the unit is required for the landlord, the landlord’s spouse, a child, or parent of the landlord. A brother or sister would not be considered immediate family in this case. With regards to the other issues, you may not have sufficient grounds yet to issue a Form N7, which is the notice given based on the reason that the tenant is interfering with the landlord’s reasonable enjoyment of the premises(if you live in the same building that has 3 or fewer residential units). In this situation, you have to be able to prove what is going on and how it’s affecting you or other people in the house. We suggest keeping a log to document any incidents that may be considered interference with reasonable enjoyment, for example, excessive noise or aggressive or abusive behavior by the tenant or her guests. This is important to have in case you do have to serve the N7 notice , as this notice requires you to provide a very detailed account of what is happening, including dates and times of each incident.

As a landlord you don’t have any control about the tenant having visitors. By law, the tenant does not have to inform the landlord in advance about their visitors and it is not considered trespassing when anyone is visiting the tenant, even when they stay overnight. A tenant has the right to have anyone visit as long as they are not disturbing anyone else in the house. If they are making excessive noise especially during late night hours then you can do something in this case. You should speak to the tenant first and ask that they refrain from making noise late at night.If the problem continues then you have the right to serve them with a legal notice based on the reason that they are interfering with your reasonable enjoyment of the premises. If a landlord lives in the same building that has 3 or fewer residential units a Form N7 may be served in this case, visit the Landlord and Tenant Board’s website at https://tribunalsontario.ca/ltb/forms/#landlord-forms to obtain the forms and more detailed information.

 

A tenant having another person staying in the unit even on a permanent basis does not mean that person will become a tenant at some point. That person can remain there, as an occupant, as long as you’re not receiving rent from him/her, and the rent is still being paid by the tenant. The only way that person becomes a tenant is if all parties are in agreement to add him/her as a tenant on the lease, and that person then starts paying rent to the landlord.

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