“55+” on the Brochure: What Ontario’s Human Rights Code Lets an Adult-Lifestyle Community Restrict, and What It Doesn’t

A 55+ label can live in a sales brochure, a condo declaration or a board rule. Only one document decides whether it holds, and that one never mentions 55.

I’m Arthur Zhao. Picture a hypothetical couple in their late fifties walking through a bungalow in an adult-lifestyle community: a clubhouse, a walking trail, lawns cut by the corporation. The glossy brochure on the kitchen counter says 55+ in large type. Halfway down the hall, one of them stops and asks the other: “Is that even allowed?”

It is a better question than most buyers think to ask, because the answer changes what they are paying for. A brochure is marketing. A condo declaration and its rules are binding on owners and occupiers. But both sit underneath Ontario’s Human Rights Code, and the Code has its own, much narrower list of situations in which housing can be limited by age.

So instead of asking whether 55+ is “allowed” in the abstract, this article walks through the questions the Code itself asks: which defence the restriction relies on, who could challenge it, how a condo document is reached by the Code, and what that means for someone deciding whether to buy. I lay out the sections; whether a particular community’s clause survives is a question for the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario or a court, and for your own lawyer before you sign.

The three defences an age restriction would have to stand on

The starting point is the Ontario Human Rights Commission’s own framing. According to the OHRC’s Policy on discrimination against older people because of age, age restrictions in housing are prima facie discriminatory, and whoever is responsible for the housing must be able to justify them using one of the defences in the Code. There are three, and each is narrower than a brochure suggests:

1. Section 18: a religious, philanthropic, educational, fraternal or social institution. The section protects membership or participation in an institution or organization that is “primarily engaged in serving the interests of persons identified by a prohibited ground”, restricted to people similarly identified. The statute speaks of services and facilities “with or without accommodation”; the OHRC reads it as reaching housing that such an organization provides as part of its services, but adds a condition: the provision of accommodation alone is not sufficient, and some other service or facility must be provided. Its example is a synagogue-run seniors’ residence that offers prayer services and kosher food and restricts membership to people of the Jewish faith over 60. A developer marketing a lifestyle is not, on the face of the text, that kind of institution.

2. Section 14: a special program. A program designed to relieve hardship or economic disadvantage, or to help disadvantaged people achieve equal opportunity, does not infringe the Code. Under s.14(2), a person may apply to the Commission to have a program designated as a special program. The OHRC says this may allow social housing for older low-income people that starts below 65, if it can be shown that the group faces particular disadvantage that younger people do not, and might also support barrier-free housing offered only to older people with disabilities.

3. Section 15: age 65 or over. This is the only defence written in terms of age itself. A right to non-discrimination because of age “is not infringed where an age of sixty-five years or over is a requirement, qualification or consideration for preferential treatment.” The OHRC’s view is that s.15 insulates housing limited to persons over 64 from challenge by people too young to qualify. The threshold in the text is 65, not 55.

The same OHRC chapter then closes the door the brochure is trying to open: “There is no defence, however, that will permit ‘adult lifestyle’ housing that results in the exclusion of children or persons under a certain age.”

Who can complain about a 55+ rule, one claimant at a time

Section 2(1) of the Code gives every person a right to equal treatment in the occupancy of accommodation without discrimination because of, among other grounds, age, marital status and family status. The OHRC’s older-persons policy confirms that housing here includes rental units, condominiums and retirement homes, and that building rules are covered. Which ground fits depends on who is being kept out.

The 50-year-old refused a unit. In the Code, “age” means an age that is 18 years or more (s.10(1)). A 50-year-old is squarely inside that definition, and the s.15 defence does not begin until 65. Their ground is age.

The parent of a minor child. “Family status” means the status of being in a parent and child relationship (s.10(1)). A rule that keeps out households with children treats the parent differently because of that relationship. According to the OHRC’s rental housing policy, “adult only” housing remains prevalent despite the clear prohibition in the Code.

The minor child herself. A 12-year-old cannot rely on “age”, because the definition starts at 18. (Section 4 gives 16- and 17-year-olds who have withdrawn from parental control a separate, narrow right in accommodation; that is a different situation.) The route for a younger child runs through family status: the definition describes the parent and child relationship itself, and the parent’s claim on that ground is the clearest one.

A grandparent raising a grandchild. Here the text stops short. The definition says parent and child; it does not say whether a grandparent and grandchild, or a grandparent acting as guardian, fall inside it. My reading is that this is an open question of interpretation rather than a settled answer either way, and it is exactly the kind of point to put to a lawyer with the facts in hand.

What a condo declaration and its rules can say, and how the Code reaches them

On the condominium side, the Condominium Act, 1998 gives the declaration wide room. Section 7(4)(b) says a declaration may contain conditions or restrictions with respect to the occupation and use of the units or common elements. Board rules are narrower. Under s.58(1), the board may make rules about the use of units, common elements or assets to promote safety, security or welfare, or to prevent unreasonable interference with use and enjoyment. Section 58(2) requires that rules be reasonable and consistent with the Act, the declaration and the by-laws, and s.58(4) says that where a rule is inconsistent with the Act, the Act prevails and the rule is deemed amended.

Compliance is where these documents get their teeth. Section 119(1) requires the corporation, owners and occupiers to comply with the Act, the declaration, the by-laws and the rules; s.119(2) requires an owner to take all reasonable steps to make sure their occupiers comply; and s.119(3) gives the corporation the right to require compliance. The Condominium Act itself contains no age-restriction provision and does not mention the Human Rights Code.

So how does the Code reach a 55+ clause in a declaration? Not through s.47(2). That subsection gives the Code primacy where a provision in an Act or regulation purports to require or authorize a contravention of Part I. A declaration or a board rule is neither an Act nor a regulation. The Code reaches it more directly: s.2(1) creates the right to equal treatment in occupancy, and s.9 says no person shall infringe, or do, directly or indirectly, anything that infringes a right under Part I. Writing, adopting or enforcing an age clause is conduct by someone; whether that conduct infringes s.2(1), or is saved by s.14, s.15 or s.18, is then the question. That is my reading of how the sections fit together, and whether any particular community’s clause survives is decided by the HRTO or a court on its own facts.

Buying into a 55+ condo community vs renting in an “adults only” building

The housing exceptions in s.21: neither age nor family status is on the list

Some readers assume there must be a general carve-out for housing. Section 21 is where the Code’s occupancy-specific exceptions live, and there are three:

s.21(1): the occupant must share a bathroom or kitchen with the owner or the owner’s family living in the same dwelling.
s.21(2): all the residential accommodation in a building, other than the owner’s, is restricted to persons of the same sex (this one applies to the ground of sex only).
s.21(3): a landlord uses income information, credit checks, credit references, rental history, guarantees or similar business practices in the manner prescribed by regulation when selecting tenants.

That is the whole list. None of them is about age, and none is about family status. A 55+ community with private units does not fit any of the three.

What to do, by role