The Life of an Unpaid-Rent Entry: Reporting a Former Tenant’s Debt to a Credit Bureau Under Ontario’s Consumer Reporting Act

Quick Answer

Sent: s.22 and PIPEDA consent apply to you

Pulled: s.8 decides who may see it; s.10 adds notice duties

Disputed: s.13 review, s.12 disclosure, s.12.6 statement

Aged off: three seven-year clocks in s.9(3)

If it was wrong: s.23 offence, s.23.1 civil claim

Day 0: the entry leaves your hands

Start with the uncomfortable fact: the Consumer Reporting Act does not contain a section that says who may furnish information to a credit bureau, or whether the consumer must agree first. The Act is silent on who may furnish data. Its rules on registration, procedures and files are written for the consumer reporting agency, and its rules on pulling reports are written for users.

What does reach you, as the person supplying the information, is s.22. According to the Consumer Reporting Act (Ontario e-Laws, 2026 consolidation), “No person shall knowingly supply false or misleading information to another who is engaged in making a consumer report.” The word that matters is knowingly. The amount you send, the dates, and whether the debt is still outstanding all need to be true when they leave your hands.

Two other layers sit outside the provincial Act:

• The bureau’s own rules. Whether a bureau, or a third-party service that reports rent data to one, accepts a submission from a small landlord, and in what form, is set by that business, not by statute. There are services that report rental payment records to credit bureaus; each has its own intake rules, which I have not reviewed for this article.
• Federal privacy law. Ontario does not have its own general private-sector privacy statute, so PIPEDA is the relevant law. It applies to personal information an organization discloses in the course of commercial activities, and its definition of “organization” includes a person. Schedule 1, Principle 4.3 says “the knowledge and consent of the individual are required for the collection, use, or disclosure of personal information, except where inappropriate.” My inference, not a line in the statute: renting a unit for rent is conduct of a commercial character, and handing a tenant’s payment record to a third party is a disclosure, so the consent principle is in play.

The Residential Tenancies Act does not fill the gap either. It has no provision allowing or prohibiting a lease term in which the tenant agrees to rent reporting; s.4(1) only voids lease provisions that are inconsistent with the RTA or its regulations.

When the next landlord pulls the report

This is the stage you already know from screening. Under s.8(1)(d)(ii), a credit bureau may furnish a consumer report to a person it has reason to believe intends to use the information “in connection with the entering into or renewal of a tenancy agreement.” Your former tenant’s next landlord is squarely inside that clause.

The Act also puts duties on that next landlord, the user:

• s.10(2): anyone requesting a report that contains personal information must first give the consumer written notice.
• s.10(1): on request, a person must tell the consumer whether a report has been or will be used for a specified transaction and name the agency supplying it.
• s.10(7): if a benefit is denied because of information in a report, the user must tell the consumer at the time, and on a request made within sixty days must give the agency’s name and address.

That last rule is how a rejected applicant learns where to look, which leads to the next stage. The tenant side of screening is covered in more detail in our article on a tenant’s rights when a landlord pulls their credit.

When the tenant disputes it

Once your former tenant knows which bureau holds the file, the Act gives them three tools:

• See it. Under s.12(1), a consumer may ask in writing for their consumer report, or their current consumer score and report. The disclosure under s.12(3) includes the sources of credit information. That can include you, as the source of the entry.
• Challenge it. Under s.13(1), the consumer may dispute the accuracy or completeness of any item, and the agency must, within a reasonable time, “use its best endeavours to confirm or complete the information” and correct, supplement or delete it “in accordance with good practice.” The section does not say how the agency confirms; if it contacts you, your documents are what the item rests on.
• Answer it. Since July 1, 2026, s.12.6 lets the consumer deliver a written explanatory statement of no more than 200 words about any item in the file. The agency must include it in every report it furnishes that contains the related information, and must remove it six years after it was added or last amended unless the consumer asks earlier.

If the agency corrects, supplements or deletes the item, s.13(2) requires it to notify everyone who received a report based on the old file within the sixty days before the change, plus the people the consumer designates who received a report containing credit information within the preceding six months.

When it falls off: three seven-year clocks

Section 9(3) lists information an agency may not include in a consumer report. Three clauses decide how long an unpaid-rent entry can stay visible, and they start their clocks on different days:

• Debt or collection, s.9(3)(f). The item cannot be reported if more than seven years have passed since the date of last payment on the debt, or, where no payment was ever made, since the date of the default. The exception: the creditor or its agent confirms the debt is not barred by statute and that confirmation is in the file.
• Judgment, s.9(3)(c). Judgment information cannot be reported more than seven years after the judgment was given, unless the creditor confirms it remains unpaid in whole or in part and the confirmation is in the file. Under s.9(3)(d), a reported judgment must name the judgment creditor and state the amount.
• Catch-all, s.9(3)(k). Any other adverse item cannot be reported once more than seven years have passed since it was acquired or last reaffirmed.

Whether a Landlord and Tenant Board order for arrears counts as a “judgment” for (c) and (d) is not answered in the Act. The statute uses the word judgment; how an LTB order is classified is the bureau’s filing practice.

💡 Which clock applies to an LTB arrears order is a classification question the Act does not answer. Read each clause on its own terms before assuming a date.

If it was wrong: what it costs

Back to s.22. Supplying false or misleading information is a contravention, and according to the Consumer Reporting Act (2026 consolidation), s.23(1) makes anyone who contravenes a provision of the Act guilty of an offence, liable on conviction to a fine of not more than $50,000, imprisonment of not more than one year, or both. Directors and officers who knowingly concur are caught too. Under s.23(2) of the same Act, the maximum for a corporation convicted is $250,000. A prosecution for a contravention cannot be started more than two years after the subject-matter arose (s.23(4)).

The fine is not the only exposure. Since 2023, s.23.1 makes a person who contravenes the Act liable to the consumer for damages sustained as a result, and the consumer may sue in the Superior Court of Justice, in addition to any other remedy.

None of this is triggered by an honest, accurate entry. All of it is triggered by an amount you could not prove, a balance you had already been paid, or a date you guessed.

• ☐Reconcile the ledger to the lease: rent owed, every payment received, and the date of each.
• ☐Decide whether you want an LTB order behind the number, and note the one-year deadline after move-out in RTA s.87(1.1)(b).
• ☐Read the bureau’s or reporting service’s own intake rules before you sign up; the Act does not set them.
• ☐Check what notice or consent you have from the tenant, given PIPEDA Principle 4.3.

• ☐Record every later payment with its date; each one restarts the s.9(3)(f) clock.
• ☐Update the bureau when the balance changes so the file does not drift away from the truth.

• ☐Answer the bureau’s s.13 verification request with documents, not a summary.
• ☐Correct or withdraw anything you cannot support; s.22 turns on what you knowingly supply.
• ☐Keep the dispute file; s.23.1 claims are brought by the consumer in the Superior Court of Justice.

Sources

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