Graffiti on Your Fence or Garage: When Toronto Can Order You to Clean It Up

Toronto’s graffiti by-law puts the cleanup duty on the owner or occupant, not on whoever held the spray can. What decides who actually pays comes down to four possible endings.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a real estate broker in Toronto. I want to start with the version of this question where the answer is least obvious. You own a house you rent out. Your tenant sends you a photo of a City notice: graffiti on the rear fence and the side of the detached garage must be removed by a date a few days away. The tenant’s message is short: is this mine to deal with, or yours?

Chapter 485, Toronto’s graffiti by-law, answers that through two definitions. An owner includes the person “managing or receiving the rent” for the property, so a landlord, or a property manager acting for one, fits. An occupant includes “a lessee or person in possession of the property who, under the terms of a lease, is required to repair and maintain the property.” So a tenant can be the person the by-law is speaking to, but only if the lease puts repair and maintenance on them. A residential tenant with no such clause may not fit that definition at all; a commercial tenant on a lease that makes them responsible for repairs very well might.

The by-law lets an officer give the notice to “the owner or occupant,” and where the person in possession is not the registered owner, it has to be served on both. Once you know who is in the frame, the more practical question is who ends up paying. The chapter gives four possible answers, and the rest of this article walks through each one.

Outcome 1: The City pays

There is one situation where the chapter puts the bill on the City in plain words. Under §485-4 F, if the Executive Director of Municipal Licensing and Standards has reasonable grounds to believe the graffiti “may incite hatred or violence against any person or identifiable group,” and that leaving it up “will increase the harm” to the people it targets, the City may enter the land before any notice is given and remove it.

Section 485-4 H then settles the cost: “Costs incurred by the City in doing the work required under Subsection F will be paid by the City.” The City still has to give notice afterwards (§485-4 G), but the review-as-art route does not apply to that notice.

Two limits on this outcome are worth being clear about. First, it is a power the City may use, based on the Executive Director’s opinion; the text does not promise that every hateful marking will be removed this way. Second, the by-law does not use the word “gang” anywhere. Tags, profanity and markings made without the owner’s permission are all graffiti vandalism under the definition, but only the hatred-or-violence category triggers the City-pays rule in §485-4 H.

Outcome 2: You pay, by cleaning it yourself

For everything else that counts as graffiti vandalism, the default is that the owner or occupant deals with it. The definition covers deliberate markings that are not exempted or regularized and that meet any one of four tests: made without the owner’s permission; considered by the Executive Director to be a tag; possibly inciting hatred or violence; or containing profane, vulgar or offensive language.

The physical scope is wide. “Property” in §485-1 expressly includes fences, outbuildings, vehicles and mobile structures, along with any other things on the property. A detached garage, a back fence or the side wall of a laneway house all sit inside that word.

The notice tells you the deadline. Under §485-4 A, the officer sets a time period in the notice, “but no sooner than 72 hours after the notice is given.” Delivery affects when that clock starts: a notice can be handed to you in person or sent by registered mail to your last known address, and a mailed notice is “deemed to have been given on the third day after it is mailed” (§485-4 B). If the City cannot find or serve the owner, a placard posted in a conspicuous place on or near the property counts as sufficient notice (§485-4 D).

If you or your tenant remove it within the time set in the notice, the cost of the cleaner or the paint is simply yours, and the file has nowhere further to go. The chapter has no fund or rebate for this, and I have not found an official City program for private-property cleanup that I could cite, so I am not going to suggest one exists.

Deadlines: what the by-law text says vs what the City’s web page says

Outcome 3: The City cleans it and bills you

If the owner or occupant does not comply with the notice, §485-7 A allows the Executive Director to enter the land at any reasonable time and do what the notice required. The same applies when an exemption request has been refused and the second notice is not complied with.

The recovery rule is §485-7 B. The City’s costs for the work, plus “any other or ancillary costs” needed to carry it out, “may be recovered by action or by adding the costs to the tax roll and collecting them in the same manner as taxes.” In plain terms, the City has two routes: sue for the amount, or put it on the property tax account.

Separately, ignoring the chapter is an offence. Section 485-8 A makes any contravention an offence, and the editor’s note to that section states that under s.61 of the Provincial Offences Act a person convicted is liable to a fine of not more than $5,000. That figure is a maximum set by statute, not a typical penalty; the chapter itself does not say what a court would impose in any given case.

Everything in this article is Toronto-specific. Other municipalities have their own by-laws, and those govern there.

Outcome 4: Nobody has to remove it

Not every painted wall is graffiti vandalism. The definition only reaches markings that are “not currently exempted or regularized by the Graffiti Panel, Executive Director or Council.” Two kinds of work can qualify:

• Graffiti art: markings approved by the owner or occupant that “aesthetically enhance the surface they cover and the general surroundings, having regard to the community character and standards.”
• Art mural: a mural “commissioned or approved prior to its creation” by the owner or occupant, where the primary purpose is to aesthetically enhance the surface and its surroundings.

There are two ways to get there.

After a notice. Every notice must say that the owner or occupant may, within the compliance period, ask the Graffiti Panel to review it on the basis that the markings are exempt (§485-4 E(1)). The request goes in writing to the Executive Director, as indicated on the notice. While the request is pending, the City takes no action under the chapter (§485-4 E(5)). After any prescribed fees are paid, the Panel either grants the exemption and registers the work in a municipal database, on condition that it is kept in good repair or removed, or confirms the notice and directs a second notice. A second notice cannot be reviewed again (§485-4 E(7)). The City’s Graffiti Art Exemption page says requests can be sent to GraffitiExemption@toronto.ca, with the exact address and location, a statement that the work was created with the owner’s permission, an explanation of how it enhances the surface and has regard to community character, and photos.

Before anyone complains. Under §485-6 A, business improvement areas, residents’ and ratepayers’ associations, other community groups, and individual owners or occupants can apply to have specific pieces of graffiti art or art murals regularized, as long as they are not on a highway or other public space. Regularized work goes into a municipal database.

The protection is conditional either way. Under §485-6 E, exempted and regularized work keeps its status only while it is “maintained in a state of good repair,” and under §485-6 C Panel-reviewed work stays regularized as long as no substantive changes are made. A mural that peels or gets tagged over can drift back into the by-law.

If a notice has arrived

Not every item applies to every property. Use the groups that fit your situation.