By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
Changing the locks on a tenant in Ontario is not forbidden. Section 24 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 bars a landlord from altering the locking system during the tenant's occupancy without giving the tenant replacement keys. Hand over the keys and you have done nothing wrong. Withhold them and you have.
That is the whole of the rule, and almost everyone gets it backwards. The expensive part is not the prohibition. It is subsection 31 (3), which lets the Board order a locked out tenant back into the unit. That order is enforced like a writ of possession, on a clock that runs 15 days and then 45.
The short version.
One thing, and it is narrower than its reputation. Section 24 is headed "Changing locks" and reads in full: "A landlord shall not alter the locking system on a door giving entry to a rental unit or residential complex or cause the locking system to be altered during the tenant's occupancy of the rental unit without giving the tenant replacement keys."
Read the last six words before anything else. The prohibition is not on changing the locks. It is on changing them and keeping the keys. A landlord who rekeys a unit after a break in, and hands the tenant a new set the same afternoon, has complied.
What section 24 does not do is set a clock. It fixes no time for handing the keys over, so the gap between the new cylinder and the new keys is governed by other sections rather than by this one.
Section 22 bars a landlord from substantially interfering with the reasonable enjoyment of the unit, and section 23 from harassing, obstructing, coercing, threatening or interfering with a tenant. Their applications are paragraphs 3 and 4 of subsection 29 (1), and they open the same menu of orders as a lockout does. That is the reason the practical rule is the one further down this page: give the replacement set the same day.
Two other words in that sentence do work. "Or cause the locking system to be altered" reaches you when a locksmith or a superintendent does it on your instruction. And "during the tenant's occupancy" is what ties the section to a live tenancy rather than to ownership of the building.
Section 35 is the mirror image and it carries the same heading. A tenant "shall not alter the locking system ... without the consent of the landlord". The two obligations are not symmetrical. You owe keys. Your tenant owes consent. Under section 70 of the Legislation Act, 2006 a heading is a reference aid and does not form part of the Act. The shared heading tells you nothing about the two sections being the same rule. The operative words say they are not.
Section 35 does give the landlord the application that duty is worth, which section 24 does not: subsection 35 (2) lets a landlord who finds the locking system altered apply to the Board for an order determining that the tenant altered it without consent, and subsection 35 (3) lets the Board order the tenant to provide keys or to "pay the landlord the reasonable out-of-pocket expenses necessary to change the locking system".
Is this you? If you own a rental in Kingston or Eastern Ontario and would rather not handle this yourself, KEILTY Realty Management manages it for a flat monthly rate. Tell us about the property and A.J. Keilty will call you within 20 minutes in business hours.
Sometimes, and the question is not whether it looks empty. It is whether the tenancy has ended.
Section 39 is the provision owners trip over, and it sits under the heading "Restriction on recovery of possession": "A landlord shall not recover possession of a rental unit subject to a tenancy unless, (a) the tenant has vacated or abandoned the unit; or (b) an order of the Board evicting the tenant has authorized the possession."
Two gates, and you need only one of them. But the first is a finding of fact that you make at your own risk, and the second is paper. Section 37 (1) is the background rule that makes it so: "A tenancy may be terminated only in accordance with this Act."
So a unit with the power disconnected, the mail piling up and the furniture gone is not automatically abandoned. If you are wrong about that, you have recovered possession in breach of section 39 and changed the locks in breach of section 24 in the same afternoon. We set out how abandonment is actually established in our post on what happens if a tenant abandons a rental unit, and it is worth reading before you touch the cylinder.
More than most owners expect, and against more people.
The application is paragraph 5 of subsection 29 (1), which is worded to track section 24 exactly: an order determining that "the landlord, superintendent or agent of the landlord has altered the locking system ... without giving the tenant replacement keys". The form is the T2, titled "Application about Tenant Rights" on the Board's forms, filing and fees page.
Note who paragraph 5 names. It reaches the landlord, the superintendent and the agent of the landlord. A property manager who sends a locksmith is a named respondent in their own right, not a witness.
Subsection 29 (2) is the limit: "No application may be made under subsection (1) more than one year after the day the alleged conduct giving rise to the application occurred." One year from the day the locks changed, not from the day the tenant found out.
Subsection 31 (1) is then the menu, and it is six orders.
Clause (a) is wider than owners expect. The Board may order that the landlord, superintendent or agent "may not engage in any further activities listed in those paragraphs against any of the tenants in the residential complex", and those paragraphs are all of paragraphs 2 to 6 of subsection 29 (1), not the lockout alone. One order about one unit can therefore govern vital services, harassment, substantial interference and illegal entry, against every tenant in the building. Contravening it is then its own offence under subclause 234 (y) (ii), which names the landlord, the superintendent and the agent and carries no knowledge requirement.
It may order payment of the reasonable cost of repairing or replacing the tenant's damaged, destroyed or disposed of property, and other reasonable out of pocket expenses. It may order an abatement of rent.
It may order "an administrative fine not exceeding the greater of $10,000 and the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court", payable to the Board rather than to the tenant. It may terminate the tenancy. And it may "make any other order that it considers appropriate".
Subsection 31 (2) adds a second tier where the tenant "was induced by the conduct of the landlord, the superintendent or an agent of the landlord to vacate the rental unit". That tier is increased rent for a one year period after leaving, plus reasonable moving, storage and like expenses. A lockout that works is worth more to the tenant than a lockout that fails.
Yes, and this is the subsection that decides what a lockout actually costs.
Subsection 31 (3) applies on a paragraph 5 application. Where the Board finds the locking system was altered without replacement keys, "and if the Board is satisfied that the rental unit is vacant, the Board may, in addition to the remedies set out in subsections (1) and (2), order that the landlord allow the tenant to recover possession of the rental unit and that the landlord refrain from renting the unit to anyone else."
Then subsection 31 (4): "An order under subsection (3) shall have the same effect, and shall be enforced in the same manner, as a writ of possession." That is the ordinary eviction machinery pointed the other way. The tenant does not have to persuade you. They file with the sheriff.
Subsection 31 (5) puts two clocks on it. The order expires "at the end of the 15th day after the day it is issued if it is not filed within those 15 days with the sheriff who has territorial jurisdiction where the rental unit is located", or "at the end of the 45th day after the day it is issued if it is filed in the manner described in clause (a)".
Read the vacancy condition carefully, because it is the only thing in subsection (3) that is within your control after the fact, and it is a trap in both directions. If you have already re-rented the unit, subsection (3) is not available and the tenant is left with money. If you have not, the tenant can be back in the unit inside a fortnight.
Owners sometimes read that as an argument for re-renting quickly. It is not. Re-renting defeats one remedy and leaves every other one standing, including the subsection 31 (2) tier, which exists precisely for the tenant who ended up somewhere else.
Both periods are counted under the Board's Rules rather than under the general statutory rules, because section 193 reads in full: "Time shall be computed in accordance with the Rules." The two lists of holidays are not the same, and we work through the difference in our post on whether a weekend or holiday extends an LTB deadline.
It is, and the Act prosecutes it differently from the thing owners confuse it with.
Clause 233 (b) makes a person guilty of an offence who "alters or causes to be altered the locking system on any door giving entry to a rental unit or the residential complex in a manner that contravenes section 24 or 35". Section 233 opens "A person is guilty of an offence if the person knowingly". The offence has a knowledge element.
Now compare entering the unit unlawfully. That is clause 234 (a), which catches a person who "enters a rental unit where such entry is not permitted by section 26, 27 or 142 or enters without first complying with the requirements of section 26, 27 or 142". It is wider than giving no notice, because section 25 permits entry only in accordance with section 26 or 27 in the first place.
Those two are short: subsection 26 (1) allows entry without written notice only in an emergency or where the tenant consents at the time of entry, and subsection 27 (1) requires written notice given at least 24 hours before the time of entry.
Section 234 opens "A person is guilty of an offence if the person", with no equivalent word. Two things an owner might do on the same visit, two offence provisions, two different mental elements. Illegal entry is also its own Board application, under paragraph 6 of subsection 29 (1), so neither of them is only an offence.
There is a third charge, and on these facts it is the easier one. Clause 234 (w) catches a person who "unlawfully recovers possession of a rental unit". A lockout that gets past section 39 is exactly that, and because it sits in section 234 rather than section 233 it carries no knowledge requirement at all. Clause 233 (b) asks what you knew. Clause 234 (w) asks only what you did.
Section 238 sets the ceiling. A person other than a corporation is "liable on conviction to a fine of not more than $100,000", and a corporation to "not more than $500,000". Those maxima came into force on 2026-07-01 through 2023, c. 10, Sched. 7, s. 9 (1, 2). Subsection 239 (2) gives the prosecution two years from the day the offence was committed.
A prosecution is a separate track from the tenant's application, not an appeal from it, and it runs in a different forum. We set out how that track actually works in our post on what happens when an Ontario landlord is charged with an offence.
Not to your exposure, and that is the point worth taking away if you use anyone at all.
Section 24 catches you where you "cause the locking system to be altered". Paragraph 5 of subsection 29 (1) names the superintendent and the agent alongside the landlord, and so do clauses 31 (1) (a) and (b). Clause 233 (b) is framed around "a person", not around a landlord.
The rest of subsection 31 (1) is narrower, and the difference is worth knowing before you reassure anybody. Clause 31 (1) (d), the administrative fine, orders "that the landlord pay to the Board". Clause (e), termination, subsection 31 (2) and subsection 31 (3), the possession order, are directed at the landlord in the same way.
Subsection 31 (2) is the largest figure on the menu and the one most often missed: where the tenant "was induced by the conduct of the landlord, the superintendent or an agent of the landlord to vacate the rental unit", the Board may order that the landlord pay any increased rent the tenant incurs for a one-year period after leaving, plus reasonable out of pocket moving, storage and other like expenses.
So a manager or a superintendent is exposed to the prohibition and to the payment order, and you are exposed to all of it.
Incorporating does not shorten the list either. Section 237 provides that "Every director or officer of a corporation who knowingly concurs in an offence under this Act is guilty of an offence", which is why the $500,000 corporate maximum above is not the whole of a numbered company's exposure.
So an instruction given by text message on a Friday afternoon reaches three people. The owner who gave it. The manager who passed it on. The superintendent who carried it out. None of them is insulated by the fact that somebody else held the drill.
That is also why the instruction is the thing to get right rather than the paperwork afterwards. Take an owner in Oshawa whose tenant has not paid for two months and has stopped answering the phone.
The lawful sequence is a notice, an application, an order and the sheriff. The unlawful one is forty dollars at the hardware store. It ends with a subsection 31 (3) order against the owner, an administrative fine payable to the Board, and a charge under clause 233 (b) that is open to everyone who had a hand in it.
Use the gate the Act actually gives you, which is clause 39 (b).
An order of the Board evicting the tenant authorizes the possession, and an eviction order is enforced by the sheriff rather than by you. The sheriff's attendance is the moment the locks change lawfully, because the tenancy has ended and section 24 no longer has a tenant's occupancy to attach to.
Between now and then, the two things that protect you are both about keys. Keep a dated record of every key, fob and card issued, and of every replacement given. And where you do have to change a cylinder mid tenancy for a legitimate reason, give the replacement set the same day and record that you did. A break in, a lost master and a departing roommate are all legitimate reasons.
Do not bill the tenant for that set. Section 134 (1) prohibits collecting "a fee, premium, commission, bonus, penalty, key deposit or other like amount of money" unless otherwise prescribed.
Paragraph 2 of section 17 of Ontario Regulation 516/06 exempts payment for replacement keys, remote entry devices or cards at no more than direct replacement cost, "unless the replacement keys, remote entry devices or cards are required because the landlord, on the landlord's initiative, changed the locks". Every reason in the paragraph above is your initiative.
Paragraph 1 still lets you charge direct cost for additional keys the tenant asks for, and paragraph 3 still permits a refundable deposit at expected direct replacement cost.
At KEILTY Realty Management we manage residential rentals across Eastern Ontario for a flat monthly rate per unit. A large part of what that buys an owner is somebody whose answer to a bad Friday afternoon is a form rather than a locksmith.
Can I change the locks if my tenant has not paid rent? Not as a way of getting them out. Non-payment does not end a tenancy, and section 39 lets you recover possession only where the tenant has vacated or abandoned or a Board order authorizes it. You can change the locks for an unrelated reason at any time, provided you give replacement keys under section 24.
What if the tenant has clearly moved out? Then section 39 (a) is satisfied and there is no occupancy for section 24 to attach to. The risk is being wrong about it. Abandonment is a finding of fact, and the cost of getting it wrong includes a subsection 31 (3) order putting the tenant back in while the unit is still vacant.
Can the Board really order a tenant back into the unit? Yes. Subsection 31 (3) allows it where the unit is vacant, and subsection 31 (4) gives that order the same effect as a writ of possession. Subsection 31 (5) expires it at the 15th day if it is not filed with the sheriff, or at the 45th day if it is.
Am I liable if my property manager changed the locks? Yes, and so are they. Section 24 reaches a landlord who causes the locking system to be altered. Paragraph 5 of subsection 29 (1) and subsection 31 (1) name the superintendent and the agent of the landlord as well.
How long does my tenant have to bring this? One year. Subsection 29 (2) bars an application made more than one year after the day the conduct occurred. The two year period in subsection 239 (2) is a different clock on a different track, for a prosecution rather than a Board application.
Not sure whether a unit is abandoned or just quiet? Talk to us before you change anything, and we will tell you which of the two gates in section 39 you are actually standing in.
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-10-19, not legal advice. Legislation, regulations and tribunal practice change. For advice on a specific property or situation, speak with a lawyer or licensed paralegal.
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