I gave my tenant an N12 notice for my own use. I received an e-mail from the tenant stating that they should be refunded the last month’s rent. Are they correct?

It depends on the situation. If the tenant had paid a last month’s rent deposit when they moved in, and if they are moving at the end of the last month of their occupancy, then they would not pay rent for that month because it would be taken care of by the last month’s rent deposit.

If the tenant is giving you at least 10 days’ notice to end the tenancy in response to your notice, and is moving before the date you specified in the N12 notice, then they only have to pay rent for the number of days that they live in the unit. In some cases the landlord would have to return even more than the last month’s rent. It would depend on how quickly they replied that they were moving out sooner than the date you gave them.

If instead the tenant never paid you a last month rent deposit in the first place, then you would have to clear that up with the tenant using your own documentation from when the tenancy began.

With the passing of Bill 124, or the Rental Fairness Act, 2017, there has been changes made to the Residential Tenancies Act. This is what the Bill says about compensation:

“48.1 A landlord shall compensate a tenant in an amount equal to one month’s rent or offer the tenant another rental unit acceptable to the tenant if the landlord gives the tenant a notice of termination of the tenancy under section 48.” This provision officially came into effect on September 1, 2017 (*Please note that the  N12 form, along with the L2 application has been updated and can be found on https://tribunalsontario.ca/ltb/forms/ ).

Landlords will only be able to give notice for own use where they make a statement that they or their immediate family member (spouse, child or parent) intend to occupy the unit for a period of at least one year, or else they may face repercussions at the Landlord and Tenant Board for giving notice in bad faith.

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