When Your Landlord Dies in Ontario: Does the Lease Survive, Who Collects Rent, and Can the Heirs Move In?

If you’ve just inherited a parent’s rental property — as executor, as heir, or as the surviving co-owner — you didn’t inherit a vacant house. You inherited a seat at the landlord’s desk. Here is what each seat allows, and what it doesn’t.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a broker with AZ Real Estate Partners at Bay Street Group Inc., Brokerage. Picture the folder you find in a parent’s desk after the funeral: a signed lease with a tenant you have never met, a note of the deposit that tenant paid, and a bank account that rent is still arriving in. The question that matters isn’t whether that lease still counts. It’s which chair you are sitting in. An estate trustee, a beneficiary, a surviving joint owner and a future buyer each hold a different set of powers over the same tenancy — and the tenant sits in the middle of all four. This piece walks through each chair in turn, using the text of the statutes, not assumptions.

Chair one: the estate trustee — you hold the keys, but in trust

According to Ontario’s Estates Administration Act (R.S.O. 1990), property that was vested in the deceased without anyone else taking it by survivorship devolves to and becomes vested in the personal representative “as trustee for the persons by law beneficially entitled thereto” (s. 2(1)). That is the estate trustee’s position in one phrase: you control the property, but not for yourself.

For the tenancy, the Residential Tenancies Act closes any gap. Its definition of “landlord” expressly includes the owner’s personal representatives (s. 2(1)(b)), and s. 18 provides that covenants concerning the rental unit or the residential complex run with the land. In practical terms, the estate trustee stands where the deceased stood:

• Rent is payable to the landlord, and the estate trustee now holds that role.
• The rent deposit stays attached to the tenancy. Section 106(10) requires a landlord to apply a deposit the tenant paid “to the landlord or to a former landlord” to the last rent period, and s. 106(6) keeps the annual interest obligation running.
• Receipts for rent, deposit or any other payment must be given free of charge on request (s. 109(1)).
• The rent itself doesn’t reset. Section 110 says no landlord shall increase the rent except in accordance with Part VII of the Act — a change of owner is not one of the ways in.

One limit is specific to estates with more than one trustee. Section 3 of the Estates Administration Act says it is not lawful for some or one only of several joint personal representatives to sell or transfer real property without a judge’s authority. If two siblings were named co-executors, neither one can sell the rental alone.

Chair two: the heir or beneficiary — waiting, then owning

While the estate is being administered, a beneficiary holds an interest in what the estate will distribute, but the property is vested in the personal representative (EAA s. 2(1)). Once the estate trustee transfers title and the beneficiary becomes the registered owner, the beneficiary is a landlord twice over in the Act’s language — as owner under s. 2(1)(a) and as heir or successor in title under s. 2(1)(b).

There is also a fallback clock. Under EAA s. 9(1), real property the personal representative has not disposed of or distributed within three years after the death vests in the beneficiaries at the end of that period without a conveyance — unless the personal representative has registered a caution in the land registry office. The section has further conditions (including the Land Titles Act and Registry Act carve-outs it names), so treat it as something to raise with the estate lawyer rather than a plan.

What the beneficiary does not inherit is a right to a vacant unit. The new owner receives the same tenancy, the same rent and the same deposit. If the beneficiary or their family intends to live there, the route is the own-use notice discussed below, with every condition that comes with it.

The own-use notice: what s. 48 asks of whoever signs it

According to the Residential Tenancies Act (2006), s. 48(1) lets a landlord end a tenancy by notice (the LTB’s form is the N12) if the landlord in good faith requires the unit for residential occupation for at least one year by the landlord, the landlord’s spouse, a child or parent of either of them, or a qualifying care-services provider. The termination date must be at least 60 days after the notice and fall at the end of a rental period or fixed term (s. 48(2)).

Two further rules decide whether the notice is available at all and what it costs:

• Who may give it. Section 48(5) says the section does not authorize a notice unless (a) the unit is owned in whole or in part by an individual, and (b) the landlord is an individual.
• Compensation. Section 48.1(1) requires one month’s rent or another unit acceptable to the tenant. Section 48.1(2), in force since September 21, 2026, removes that requirement for a notice given on or after that day if the termination date is at least 120 days after the notice and falls at the end of a period or term.

For a beneficiary who has become the registered owner as a person, s. 48(5) reads directly: an individual owner, acting as an individual landlord. The harder case is the period in between, discussed in the warning that follows.

Chair three: the surviving joint tenant — where the estate may never enter

EAA s. 2(1) applies only to property vested in the deceased “without a right in any other person to take by survivorship.” If a parent held the rental with a spouse or child as joint tenants, the survivor takes the deceased’s share by survivorship and the property does not pass through the estate trustee’s hands under that section. One exception to check: if the deceased was married, the property was also the couple’s matrimonial home (for example, a house where they lived in one unit and rented out another), and it was held as joint tenants with someone other than the spouse, such as an adult child, Family Law Act s. 26(1) deems that joint tenancy severed immediately before death, so the deceased’s share does go to the estate. A lawyer should confirm which rule applies.

For the tenancy, the surviving joint tenant was already an owner and remains one — a landlord under RTA s. 2(1)(a). Nothing in the Act brings the lease to an end on a co-owner’s death; s. 37(1) allows termination only in accordance with the Act. If the survivor is an individual and wants the unit for their own family, the s. 48 conditions above apply to them directly.

A tenancy-in-common share behaves differently: it carries no survivorship, so the deceased’s share goes to the estate trustee under s. 2(1), and the living co-owner and the estate share the ownership side of the tenancy until the estate is settled.

Chair four: the buyer — two notices that look alike but are not

The tenant in the middle: what stays fixed no matter who is in which chair

Because the Act defines “tenant” to include the tenant’s heirs and personal representatives, and “landlord” to include the owner’s, the relationship is built to outlive either party. From the tenant’s side, these points do not move with the change of owner:

• The tenancy can end only in accordance with the Act (s. 37(1)).
• The deposit credited earlier is applied to the last rent period, whichever landlord received it (s. 106(10)), and a new landlord cannot collect a second one (s. 106(4)).
• If annual deposit interest isn’t paid, the tenant may deduct it from a later rent payment (s. 106(9)).
• A tenant who receives an own-use or purchaser notice may leave earlier than the date in it, by giving at least 10 days’ notice (s. 48(3)–(4); s. 49(4)–(5)).
• A former tenant can still request receipts for up to 12 months after the tenancy ends (s. 109(2)).

For the family, that list is also a checklist of what the estate needs from the deceased’s records: the lease, the deposit amount and date, interest paid to date, and the rent history.