Tenant Damage in Ontario: Build the Record First, Then Choose N5 or N7, Then Claim the Repair Bill

Which notice you serve depends on what you can prove about how the damage happened. Getting paid for the repair is a separate application with its own deadline.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a real estate broker in Toronto. Picture this: the tenant in the basement suite of your house phones to say water is coming through her ceiling. You go upstairs, nobody is home, and the bathtub has overflowed. Before anyone mentions an LTB form, the facts you collect that evening already shape a lot of what follows.

The Residential Tenancies Act doesn’t ask how upset you are or how big the bill looks. The sections on damage point to a few specific things you have to show: whether the damage is undue, who caused it, whether it was careless or deliberate, and what a reasonable repair costs. Your answers decide which notice fits, how long the process takes, and whether the tenant gets a chance to put things right. Below, I go through it in the order you actually live it, starting the day you find the damage.

Day 0: the record you make before you decide anything

Whatever notice you end up serving, the LTB’s own forms tell you what it will want to see. The N7 instructions ask you to describe who caused the problem (the tenant, another occupant or a guest), the dates and times it happened, what happened, and who was affected. The L2 instructions ask you to explain the damage and how you worked out the cost, item by item, and say you can use estimates if the work isn’t done yet.

So on the day you find it, a useful record looks like this:

• dated photos of the damage and of the area around it
• written notes on when you learned about it, from whom, and who was living in or visiting the unit
• anything the tenant said or wrote about how it happened
• a written repair or replacement estimate for each item

According to the LTB Rules of Procedure (Rule 19.1), every party must give the other parties and the Board copies of all documents, pictures and other evidence they plan to rely on at least 7 days before the case management hearing or hearing. Anything you don’t write down on Day 0 is hard to put in front of the Board later.

Three questions the wording of the Act puts to you

Sections 34, 62, 63 and 89 of the Residential Tenancies Act are each built from the same few elements. Taken in order, they become three questions. Answer them honestly from your Day 0 record before you pick a form.

How the notice you serve sets the clock

Once the evidence has pointed you to a form, the deadlines come from the Act:

• N5 (s.62): the termination date can be no earlier than the 20th day after the notice is given. The tenant has seven days after receiving it to repair, replace or pay, or to make arrangements satisfactory to you to do so. If they do, the notice is void (s.62(3)). You cannot apply to the Board before that seven-day period ends (s.70). The N5 instructions put it as “starting on the 8th day”.
• N7 (s.63): the termination date can be no earlier than the 10th day. Section 63(3) says the s.62 repair-or-pay requirement and the voiding rule do not apply, and the N7 instructions say you can apply “immediately after giving the notice”.
• Both: the Form L2 must be filed no later than 30 days after the termination date in the notice (s.69(2)).

When you count the days, the LTB’s notice instructions say not to include the day you give the notice, to add five days if you mail it, and to add one business day if you send it by courier.

One more difference comes at the end of the process. Section 84 says that when the Board makes an eviction order based on an N7-type notice (s.63, 65 or 66), it must ask the sheriff to expedite enforcement. That is subject to the Board’s power in s.83 to refuse an eviction or postpone it, which still applies to every eviction application.

The repair bill runs on its own track

Section 89 is separate from both notices. A landlord can apply for an order that a tenant or former tenant pay reasonable repair or replacement costs if, while they were in possession, they, another occupant or someone they let in wilfully or negligently caused undue damage. Proving carelessness is enough for the money, even if it wouldn’t support an N7.

• Tenant still in the unit: you can apply on Form L2. The L2 instructions say no notice is required beforehand if you are claiming damage compensation and not asking to end the tenancy. You can also claim it in the same L2 as an eviction.
• Tenant has moved out: the L2 can’t be used. The L2 instructions point to Form L10, Application to Collect Money a Former Tenant Owes, where the tenant moved out on or after September 1, 2021 and less than a year ago. That date is when the current s.89 came into force (2020, c. 16, Sched. 4, s. 21).
• Deadline: under s.89(1.1), you apply while the tenant is in possession, or no later than one year after they stopped being in possession.

The rent deposit isn’t a damage fund. Section 105(1) says the only security deposit a landlord may collect is a rent deposit under s.106, and s.106(10) requires it to be applied to the rent for the last rent period before the tenancy ends. Where the Board orders both payment under s.89 and termination, s.89(2) has it set off the rent deposit and any interest owed on it against the amount the tenant must pay. Collecting on a money order once you have one is a separate process.

Sidebar: the two N7 grounds that aren’t about damage

The N7 form also covers two reasons unrelated to property damage, both with a termination date no earlier than the 10th day:

• s.66, safety: an act or omission of the tenant, an occupant or their guest that seriously impairs, or has seriously impaired, anyone’s safety, where it happens in the residential complex.
• s.65, live-in landlord: available only to a landlord who lives in a building with not more than three residential units, where the tenant’s side substantially interferes with the landlord’s reasonable enjoyment of the building or another lawful right, privilege or interest.

Tampering with smoke alarms is one situation where the safety ground and the N5 can both come up. The related reading below covers that.

If something happens again within six months

Section 68 gives a landlord a stronger second notice. If you served a notice under s.62, 64 or 67 (the N5 grounds), and more than seven days but less than six months later a new ground arises under s.60, 61, 62, 64 or 67, you can serve a notice with a termination date no earlier than the 14th day. The N5 instructions say this second N5 can’t be voided and that you can apply as soon as you’ve served it, provided the first N5 gave the tenant seven days to correct the problem. An N7 (s.63, 65 or 66) is not one of the earlier notices listed in s.68(1)(a). An N6 for illegal acts is a separate notice with its own rules.