I want to show my unit to potential future tenants, but my current tenants have left the unit in a state of extreme uncleanliness and disrepair. What are my options?

Regarding repair responsibilities, if you look at page 7 of 9 on this LTB brochure https://tribunalsontario.ca/documents/ltb/Brochures/Maintenance%20and%20Repairs%20(EN).pdf  on maintenance obligations, you may get a better sense of how the Board views and explains the duties of the tenant when it comes to cleanliness and repairs. It is less clear how they will approach the smaller details involved in enforcing these obligations, especially since tenants and landlords rarely see eye to eye on when or how well a problem has been solved. We encourage landlords to be clear about quality of work when asking tenants to clean up or repair damage, but beyond that, landlords have to take a “wait and see” attitude, and let the tenant do the work to their own standard since they are still in possession of the unit. The Board is more understanding about landlords hiring professionals if the tenant is ignoring or resisting the repair requests, or where they have botched a repair.

Unless it is a situation like hoarding, clean-up by professionals should only be done after the unit is empty for practical reasons, unless the tenant is in full written agreement.

The timeline you set for the tenants to clean up or repair damages should be general in nature, unless you are serving an eviction notice. You would make your request after you inspect with notice, and then schedule another inspection in 7 or 10 days, for example.

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