By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
Ontario publishes an answer, and it is a table. The Schedule to O. Reg. 516/06 gives a useful life in years for 211 items across fourteen Tables: a gas forced-air furnace 25 years, an asphalt shingle roof 15, a refrigerator 15, an ensuite carpet 10.
The number matters less than what it is for. That Schedule has one job, and it is not the one most owners reach for it to do. It sets how long an above-guideline rent increase for a capital expenditure is spread, and when you have to take that increase back off the rent.
It does not cap what you can charge a tenant for damage. Read on 2026-10-21, O. Reg. 516/06 mentions section 89 of the Act zero times, and the words "depreciation", "betterment" and "wear and tear" appear nowhere in the regulation, nowhere in the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, and nowhere in any of the twenty published LTB Interpretation Guidelines.
In one place: the Schedule at the end of O. Reg. 516/06, titled "Useful life of work done or thing purchased". It sits after the last section of the regulation and is not inside any Part.
It is fourteen separate Tables, not one. They are headed Sitework, Concrete, Masonry, Metals, Wood and plastics, Thermal and Moisture Protection, Doors and Windows, Finishes, Specialties, Equipment, Furnishings, Conveying Systems, Mechanical and Electrical. Mechanical is the largest at 43 items and Metals the smallest at one.
Every Table carries the same three columns, worded identically: "Column 1 Item", "Column 2 Work Done or Thing Purchased" and "Column 3 Useful life in years".
The gateway is section 27 of the regulation, which opens: "The useful life of work done or a thing purchased shall be determined from the Schedule subject to the following rules". Note the plural in rule 1, which refers to "the Tables in the Schedule". There is no single master table to look something up in.
One date is worth carrying. The whole Schedule in its current form credits to a single amending instrument, "O. Reg. 342/17, s. 2.", and subsection 27 (1) credits to section 1 of that same instrument. Subsection 27 (2) carries only its original 2006 credit. So the Schedule and subsection 27 (1) were last amended together in 2017, and nothing since, including O. Reg. 241/26, has touched either.
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.
Here is what the Tables give for the things that break most often in a small building.
Two things in that list surprise owners. A hot water tank is given 25 years and a dishwasher 10, which is a wider gap than most replacement budgets assume. And "repairs" are their own items with their own short lives, separate from the thing repaired.
Because section 27 overrides the Table. Rule 1 of subsection 27 (1) reads: "Where the useful life set out in Column 3 of the Tables in the Schedule is less than 10 years, the useful life of work done or a thing purchased shall be deemed to be 10 years."
So a five-year entry becomes ten wherever that rule reaches. Ten of the 211 items are listed at 5: roof repairs, exterior painting, sanding and restaining a floor, gypsum board repairs, swimming pool painting and garage floor sealer among them.
Two more rules change the number you actually use. Rule 2 deals with second-hand purchases, and requires the useful life to be "determined taking into account the length of time of that previous use". Rule 3 deals with items that are not in the Schedule at all, and sends you to "items with similar characteristics that do appear in the Schedule".
Rule 4 then closes the gap from the other side. It opens "Despite paragraphs 2 and 3", and provides that "the useful life of work done or a thing purchased shall not be determined to be less than 10 years". Ten years is a floor, not a starting point.
One provision opts out of that floor, and it is easy to miss. Section 18 (2) of the regulation, which decides whether a leased asset counts as a capital expenditure at all, applies section 27 "but without regard to any part of section 27 that prevents the useful life from being determined to be less than 10 years". On that one test, a Column 3 figure of five is used as five.
There is a second tier below that, and it is the part most summaries miss. Subsection 27 (2) covers the case where the thing is not listed and nothing similar is listed either. The useful life is then "what is generally accepted as the useful life of such work or thing but in no case shall the useful life be determined to be less than 10 years".
LTB Interpretation Guideline 14, which carries a bare date of 2018-02-07, restates those rules and repeats the same floor: "In no case will useful life be less than 10 years." The Guideline is not binding on a Member, so read it as the Board explaining the regulation rather than as the rule itself.
On an above-guideline rent increase, and only there. Section 126 (1) of the Act lets a landlord apply for an increase above the guideline on three grounds, of which the second is "Eligible capital expenditures incurred respecting the residential complex or one or more of the rental units in it".
Eligibility is decided by section 126 (7), (8) and (9), not by the Schedule. Subsection (7) opens "Subject to subsections (8) and (9)" and lists six qualifying purposes, including work "necessary to protect or restore the physical integrity of the residential complex" and work that "promotes energy or water conservation".
Subsection (8) is the trap: replacing a system or thing that "did not require major repair or replacement" is not eligible, unless the replacement promotes accessibility, conservation or security. Subsection (9) is the second one, taking the expenditure out of play for a unit where a new tenancy agreement took effect after the work was completed.
Read that against the Table. A furnace at year 26 is past its listed life and may still have required no major repair, in which case replacing it is not an eligible capital expenditure at all. The Schedule says nothing about whether you may claim. It only comes in once you may.
Timing is separate again. Section 26 (2) of the regulation allows an increase for a capital expenditure only where "the work was completed during the 18-month period ending 90 days before the effective date of the first intended rent increase referred to in the application".
The Schedule's number then does two jobs. First, where an application covers several expenditures with different lives, section 26 (6) produces a single weighted useful life for each unit, by proportioning each item's life by its share of the total and rounding the sum to the nearest full year.
Second, and this is the one owners forget, that weighted figure sets the date the increase comes off again. Section 38 of the regulation fixes the date for the purposes of section 129 of the Act by adding the weighted useful life to the year the increase was taken.
Guideline 14 puts it plainly. Where the tenant is still there when the weighted useful life has ended, "the landlord must reduce the rent by the percentage increase that is attributed to the capital expenditure on the date in the LTB order".
Two more constraints sit on top. Section 126 (11) caps the capital expenditure and security share at 3 per cent in any one year and spreads the remainder over up to two further 12-month periods. And section 116 (2) confirms that an order under section 126 does not dispense with notice: you still give the 90 days required by section 116 (1), and an increase given without it is void under section 116 (4).
We walk through the application itself in how to apply for an above-guideline rent increase in Ontario.
No, and nothing in the Act, the regulation or the Interpretation Guidelines says it does.
Section 34 of the Act makes the tenant "responsible for the repair of undue damage to the rental unit or residential complex caused by the wilful or negligent conduct of the tenant, another occupant of the rental unit or a person permitted in the residential complex by the tenant". Section 89 is the application that enforces it.
Section 89 (1) lets a landlord apply for "reasonable costs that the landlord has incurred or will incur for the repair of or, where repairing is not reasonable, the replacement of damaged property". That word "reasonable", and the repair-before-replacement structure, are the only limits the Act puts on the amount.
Measured on 2026-10-21, the words "depreciation", "betterment", "wear and tear" and even the bare word "wear" return zero across the whole consolidated Act. O. Reg. 516/06 returns zero for the same terms, and refers to section 89 nowhere. Across all twenty published LTB Interpretation Guidelines, "useful life" appears in one document only, Guideline 14, and always about above-guideline increases.
Frankly, the statement has to be narrow. No instrument requires a Member to reduce your damage claim by the age of the item. That is not the same as saying a Member will not do it.
Our reading is that where a Member discounts a replacement claim for age, that is being done under the word "reasonable" in section 89 (1), not under the Schedule. Treat the Table as persuasive material rather than as a rule, and expect the other side to use it the same way.
One clock does apply, and it is short. Subsection 89 (1.1) allows the application "while the tenant is in possession of the rental unit", or "no later than one year after the tenant or former tenant ceased to be in possession of the rental unit". The year runs from the end of possession, not from the damage and not from when you found it.
What you can and cannot charge is set out in can a landlord charge a tenant for damage in Ontario.
Take a six-unit building in Peterborough. The boiler fails in January, you replace it, and the invoice lands at a number you would like to recover.
Work the questions in order. Is it eligible? A failed boiler required major repair or replacement, so section 126 (8) does not bar it, and keeping the heat on fits section 126 (7) (c). Was it completed in time? The work has to fall in the 18-month window ending 90 days before your first intended increase date, so the application is built backwards from the date you want the increase to start.
What is its life? Table 13 gives hot water boilers 15 years and steam boilers 25. The Schedule's number is the one in Column 3 for the thing you actually bought, not the nearest thing you can describe it as.
What does it cost you later? If the increase is permitted, the capital expenditure share is capped at 3 per cent a year, and the weighted useful life sets a date on which that share has to come back off the rent for a tenant who took that increase and is still in the unit. A 15-year life means a 15-year commitment to a rent reduction, written into the order.
And if a tenant damages that boiler next year, none of the above applies. That is a section 89 application for reasonable repair or replacement costs, subject to the one-year clock, and the Schedule has nothing to say about it.
Where is the useful life table in Ontario? It is the Schedule at the end of O. Reg. 516/06 under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, titled "Useful life of work done or thing purchased". It is fourteen Tables covering 211 items, each giving a useful life in years in Column 3.
Does the useful life table apply to a damage claim against my tenant? No. The Schedule is a capital expenditure instrument for above-guideline rent increases. O. Reg. 516/06 does not mention section 89 of the Act at all, and no published LTB Interpretation Guideline tells a Member to reduce a damage claim by an item's useful life.
Why does the table list items at five years if the minimum is ten? Because rule 1 of subsection 27 (1) deems any Column 3 figure under ten years to be ten, and rule 4 bars any determination below ten. The short entries are real entries that the floor overrides nearly everywhere it is applied. The exception is section 18 (2) of the regulation, the leased asset test, which applies section 27 without the ten-year floor.
Working out whether a replacement is an eligible capital expenditure, and what it commits you to fifteen years out, is the kind of question worth asking before the invoice is paid. Send us the details and we will tell you which of the three tests it fails, if any.
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law and Landlord and Tenant Board procedure as of 2026-10-21, not legal advice. Legislation, regulations, rules and tribunal practice change. For advice on a specific property or situation, speak with a lawyer or licensed paralegal.
Ontario property management with published pricing, same-day answers, and no surprises. Since 2003.
300-80 Queen StreetNot served yet. Join a list and hear from us the day we open.