By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
Yes, you can. Distance does not make self-management impossible. What it does is put a price on a short list of specific things. The useful exercise is to name them, work out what each one actually costs, and then decide with the numbers in front of you rather than with a feeling.
This post works through a single-family rental in Belleville owned by someone who lives a two to three hour drive away. The same reasoning applies anywhere in Eastern Ontario, and a good deal of it applies to any owner who is not on site every week. Where a rule of law is doing the work we cite it and link it, because the interesting part of this question is not the driving. It is that several deadlines are counted differently depending on how a piece of paper reaches you, and that difference is the closest thing there is to a distance tax.
The short version.
Three different things, and it helps to keep them apart, because they have different fixes and only one of them is really about driving.
The first is a set of clocks that run whether or not you are watching them. Notice periods, the appeal window on a property standards order, the 90 days on a rent increase. None of these care where you live, and the one with the shortest fuse is counted from a date somebody else picks.
The second is the short list of tasks that need a body in the building: letting a plumber in, walking a prospective tenant through the kitchen, checking whether the thing the tenant described as a small leak is a small leak. These are the visible ones, and they are the ones that can be solved by hiring a single reliable local person rather than a management company.
The third is judgement under time pressure. A tenant calls on a Friday afternoon about water coming through a ceiling. The decision you make in the next twenty minutes, and how quickly somebody with a key can be standing in the room, is the part of this that is hardest to buy back later. Distance makes that decision harder because you are making it blind.
What follows takes the first category seriously, because it is the part that is written down and the part that is easiest to leave out of the arithmetic.
Almost none, and the one provision that helps is about remedy rather than liability.
Section 20 (1) of the Act reads: "A landlord is responsible for providing and maintaining a residential complex, including the rental units in it, in a good state of repair and fit for habitation and for complying with health, safety, housing and maintenance standards." There is no exception in the section, and section 20 (2) closes the obvious escape hatch: the obligation "applies even if the tenant was aware of a state of non-repair or a contravention of a standard before entering into the tenancy agreement."
Where distance might have helped is knowledge, and the Board has published its thinking on that. Interpretation Guideline 5, Breach of Maintenance Obligations, dated December 15, 2018, records that "A landlord may assert that they are not liable for the unexpected results of maintenance problems of which they were not aware or that they could not reasonably be expected to have knowledge of. This is indeed the law, as established by two Ontario Court of Appeal decisions."
Read the second limb, because it is the one doing the work. The Guideline as written is a disjunctive, "were not aware or that they could not reasonably be expected to have knowledge of", but the protection it goes on to describe is for a landlord on both counts: elsewhere it says a tenant's failure to advise the landlord "will affect the remedies to be ordered, unless the landlord knew about the problem already or should have known." Either way, "could reasonably be expected to have knowledge of" is in the test, and the Guideline says nothing at all about geography.
The same document is careful not to let a system stand in for a response: "A landlord may assert that they have a good program of maintenance and repair, including preventative maintenance and a system of processing complaints. This is not a release of the landlord's responsibility to respond to a real problem." So having somebody local is not a defence either. Our own reading is that a landlord who has arranged for no one to look at the property is in a worse position than one who has, because the test asks what you could reasonably have been expected to know. That is our reading of the Guideline rather than something it states outright, and the sentence just quoted is a real limit on it.
There is one provision that helps, and it is worth knowing. Section 30 (2) says that in determining the remedy, "the Board shall consider whether the tenant or former tenant advised the landlord of the alleged breaches before applying to the Board." That is a mandatory consideration rather than a discretionary one. It only bears on your file if the tenant had an easy way to reach you and did not use it, which means cheap insurance for a remote owner is a phone number and an email address that are answered the same day, and a record of both. Note also that section 29 (2) bars an application made "more than one year after the day the alleged conduct giving rise to the application occurred", so the window on old complaints is not open indefinitely.
Because the Act says so, in one sentence. Section 191 (3): "A notice or document given by mail shall be deemed to have been given on the fifth day after mailing."
Note what that sentence does and does not say. It does not add five days to a deadline. It fixes the date on which the notice counts as having been given, and that date is the fifth day after you mailed it. Five calendar days, not five business days. Everything downstream of the giving date moves with it.
Section 191 (1) sets out how a notice may be given to somebody other than the Board. The methods are: handing it to the person; handing it to an employee of the landlord exercising authority over the complex, where the recipient is a landlord; handing it to an apparently adult person in the rental unit, where the recipient is a tenant, subtenant or occupant; "by leaving it in the mail box where mail is ordinarily delivered to the person"; if there is no mail box, leaving it where mail is ordinarily delivered; sending it by mail to the last known address; and "by any other means allowed in the Rules." A separate subsection, 191 (1.0.1), governs giving a notice to a tenant or former tenant "who is no longer in possession of a rental unit", which is the one to check if you are chasing somebody who has already gone.
Two things follow that are worth money to a remote owner.
The first is that the mail box is not the mail. Leaving a notice in the tenant's mail box under clause 191 (1) (d) is a delivery method in its own right, and the five day deeming rule in section 191 (3) is tied to mailing, not to the mail box. If you are already driving to the property, the piece of paper you leave in the box that afternoon is given that afternoon. The same document dropped at a post office on the same day is given five days later. That is a free five days for a trip you were making anyway, and it costs nothing to take.
The second is that courier, email and fax are not in the Act at all. We searched the whole statute: the words courier, email, e-mail, fax and facsimile appear zero times. The only route to electronic service is clause 191 (1) (g), "by any other means allowed in the Rules", together with section 213, which permits documents to be dealt with electronically "if it is done in accordance with the regulations or the Rules." So before you email an N1 to a tenant because it is faster, check the Board's Rules for that document. Do not assume the Act has you covered, because it does not mention the method.
There is also a cure for a service defect you discover late, and it is narrower than owners hope. Section 191 (2): a notice not given in accordance with the section "shall be deemed to have been validly given if it is proven that its contents actually came to the attention of the person for whom it was intended within the required time period." That is a rescue built on proof, and the burden is yours. It is not a substitute for serving properly. It is the thing you reach for when you have already made a mistake.
They can turn a lawful increase into a void one, which is why this is the place to be careful rather than the place to panic.
Start with the rules. Section 116 (1): "A landlord shall not increase the rent charged to a tenant for a rental unit without first giving the tenant at least 90 days written notice of the landlord's intention to do so." Section 116 (3): "The notice shall be in a form approved by the Board and shall set out the landlord's intention to increase the rent and the amount of the new rent." That form is the N1. Section 116 (4) supplies the consequence: an increase is void if the notice was not given, "and the landlord must give a new notice before the landlord can take the increase."
Then section 119 (1), the 12 month rule. A landlord lawfully entitled to increase the rent "may do so only if at least 12 months have elapsed, (a) since the day of the last rent increase for that tenant in that rental unit, if there has been a previous increase; or (b) since the day the rental unit was first rented to that tenant, if clause (a) does not apply."
Worth being precise about section 116 (1), because the Act and the usual paraphrase of it do not say quite the same thing. The Act measures 90 days of notice of the landlord's intention, given first. The words "before the date the increase takes effect" do not appear in the section, and the legislature plainly knew that phrasing, because section 126 (3) uses it for an above-guideline application. The effective date framing comes from the approved form, from Board practice and from the Province's own guidance, which states that the notice must be given at least 90 days before the increase takes effect. The safe way to work is to count back 90 days from the day the new rent is to start.
Now the Belleville example. Say the last increase for this tenant took effect on 2026-03-01. Under section 119 (1) (a) the next increase can take effect no earlier than 2027-03-01, a Monday. Counting back 90 days from 2027-03-01 lands on Tuesday 2026-12-01, so the notice has to be given on or before that day.
If you hand it over, or leave it in the mail box on a visit, 2026-12-01 is the date you do it. If you post it, section 191 (3) puts the giving on the fifth day after mailing, so the letter has to be in the post by Thursday 2026-11-26 to be given on 2026-12-01. Mail it on 2026-12-01 itself and it is given on 2026-12-06, five days late.
Now the size of the problem, because this is where guidance tends to reach for a frightening number. Take a unit at $2,100 a month. The guideline is reset every year and published by the Province, and for 2027 it is 1.9 per cent, so the new rent would be $2,139.90, an increase of $39.90. If you notice the mistake, you move the increase forward to the next rent period, 2027-04-01, and forgo one month of it. Rent here is payable monthly, so a month is the natural unit to move by. That is $39.90. It is not a disaster.
The expensive version is not noticing. If you charge $2,139.90 from 2027-03-01 on the strength of a notice given on 2026-12-06, section 116 (4) makes that increase void and you are collecting rent you are not entitled to. An overcharge is harder to spot from three hours away than from across town, because you are reading a statement rather than a ledger you built. That said, the exposure is bounded in two ways a remote owner should know about. Section 135.1 (1) provides that an increase which "would otherwise be void under subsection 116 (4) is deemed not to be void if the tenant has paid the increased rent in respect of each rental period for at least 12 consecutive months", unless under section 135.1 (2) the tenant has applied within a year putting the increase in issue. And section 135 (4) bars an order on a tenant's application "filed more than one year after the person collected or retained money in contravention of this Act". So the window is twelve months rather than forever. That is a reason to fix an error quickly, not a reason to rely on it.
One caveat on the $39.90, and it decides whether any of the guideline arithmetic applies to you at all. Section 6.1 (2) disapplies sections 120, 121, 122, 126, 127, 129, 131, 132, 133, 165 and 167 to a unit in a building no part of which was occupied for residential purposes on or before November 15, 2018. If your unit is in that group, the guideline does not cap your increase. Sections 116 and 119 are not in that list, so the 90 days and the 12 months still bind you either way. Check which case you are in before you write a number on the form.
You can, and it is worth understanding properly, because the common advice on this is half the picture.
Section 106 (3): "If the lawful rent increases after a tenant has paid a rent deposit, the landlord may require the tenant to pay an additional amount to increase the rent deposit up to the amount permitted by subsection (2)." Subsection (2) caps the deposit at the lesser of one rent period and one month's rent. Read the verbs: "may require the tenant to pay". It is not automatic and the deposit does not adjust itself.
Here is the half that gets left out. Section 106 (6) puts an annual liability on the landlord: "A landlord of a rental unit shall pay interest to the tenant annually on the amount of the rent deposit at a rate equal to the guideline determined under section 120 that is in effect at the time payment becomes due." On the numbers above that is $2,100 at 1.9 per cent, which is $39.90 owed to the tenant. And section 106 (7) lets you net the two off: the landlord "may deduct from the amount payable under subsection (6) the amount, if any, by which the maximum amount of the rent deposit permitted under subsection (2) exceeds the amount of the rent deposit paid by the tenant and the deducted amount shall be deemed to form part of the rent deposit paid by the tenant."
So on a guideline increase the top-up and the interest are the same figure, and section 106 (7) lets the one settle the other without a cheque moving in either direction. The deposit ends up at the new month's rent and the tenant's interest has been paid, in the same stroke. That is a good deal more useful to a remote owner than chasing $39.90, and it is the sort of housekeeping that quietly does not happen when nobody owns the file. The two numbers only match while the increase is a guideline increase, so where section 6.1 (2) applies, or where you have taken an above-guideline increase, do the arithmetic rather than assuming it nets to zero.
Quickly in a genuine emergency. Not quickly at all for anything else.
Section 25 is the gateway: "A landlord may enter a rental unit only in accordance with section 26 or 27." Section 27 (1) is the notice route. A landlord may enter "in accordance with written notice given to the tenant at least 24 hours before the time of entry" for five listed purposes, including "To carry out a repair or replacement or do work in the rental unit" and an inspection to determine whether the unit is in a good state of repair. Section 27 (3) tells you what the notice must contain, and there are exactly three things: "the reason for entry, the day of entry and a time of entry between the hours of 8 a.m. and 8 p.m." Note that it says a time of entry, not a window.
The fifth purpose in section 27 (1) is the one to use. It reads: "For any other reasonable reason for entry specified in the tenancy agreement." That is a catch-all you can widen once, at lease signing, and then rely on for the life of the tenancy. A remote owner who thinks at the drafting stage about the reasons they will actually need is buying themselves something they cannot buy later.
The Board's own guide adds the part that helps a remote owner: "If the landlord gives the tenant the correct notice, the landlord can enter even if the tenant is not at home." A properly served 24 hour notice therefore lets a trade do the work without the tenant taking a day off. Somebody still has to let the contractor in. The notice itself can be posted under clause 191 (1) (f), as long as you have allowed for the five days.
In a real emergency the notice falls away. Section 26 (1): a landlord may enter at any time without written notice "(a) in cases of emergency; or (b) if the tenant consents to the entry at the time of entry." There is no hour restriction on either. The constraint on a distant owner is not legal permission, it is that permission is worth nothing without a key, an address and somebody who can be there.
One pair of rules sits the opposite way round to the way it reads, and it costs money on turnover. Showing the unit to prospective tenants needs no written notice at all. Section 26 (3) allows it where the tenancy is already ending by agreement or notice, between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., and where the landlord "informs or makes a reasonable effort to inform the tenant of the intention to do so" before entering. Showing the unit to a potential purchaser is the other way round: section 27 (2) puts that squarely in the 24 hour written notice category. Get the pair the wrong way round and you either give yourself a notice period you did not need, or skip one you did.
This is the clock that punishes distance hardest, and the first thing to establish is which order you are actually holding, because there are two and they run to different places on different timetables.
The route people write about is the Residential Tenancies Act one. An inspector's work order under section 225, reviewable by the Board under section 226 (1): "If a landlord who has received an inspector's work order is not satisfied with its terms, the landlord may, within 20 days after the day the order is issued, apply to the Board for a review of the work order." Twenty days, running from issuance.
But section 224 (1) gates that whole route. The prescribed maintenance standards apply "if, (a) there is no municipal property standards by-law that applies to the residential complex; or (b) there is a municipal property standards by-law that applies to the residential complex and the prescribed circumstances apply." Where a municipality has passed a property standards by-law under section 15.1 of the Building Code Act, 1992, and Ontario municipalities of any size commonly have, an officer inspects under section 15.2 (1) and the order is made under section 15.2 (2). That is not an inspector's work order under the Residential Tenancies Act and the Board is not where it goes. That is our reading of section 224 (1) rather than something either statute sets out in one place, and the fair counter-argument is that section 4 of O. Reg. 517/06 contemplates a municipality whose by-law covers only the exterior, which sits awkwardly with treating any by-law at all as closing limb (a). The practical instruction survives the argument either way: look at which statute your order cites before you count a single day.
The appeal is section 15.3 (1) of the Building Code Act, 1992, and every part of it is worse for an absent owner: an owner or occupant served with a section 15.2 (2) order "may appeal to the committee by sending a notice of appeal by registered mail to the secretary of the committee within 14 days after being served with the order." Fourteen days, not twenty. To a municipal property standards committee, not the Board. By registered mail, which takes a trip or an arrangement. And section 15.3 (2) is the sting: "An order that is not appealed within the time referred to in subsection (1) shall be deemed to be confirmed."
Put the two side by side and the distance problem is obvious. The Building Code Act clock at least runs from service rather than issuance, so postal delay does not eat into it the way it eats into the twenty days. But fourteen days is short, it starts when the envelope is served rather than when you open it, and there is no equivalent of section 190 (1) sitting behind it. On the Residential Tenancies Act side there is: section 190 (1) provides that "The Board may extend or shorten the time requirements related to making an application under section 126, subsection 159 (2) or section 226 in accordance with the Rules." That is a closed list of three, and section 190 (2) gives the Board a broader power over its own proceedings "other than the prescribed time requirements". An extension is something the Board may grant, not something a landlord is entitled to.
Take an order issued on Tuesday 2026-10-06 under the Residential Tenancies Act route. Day 20 is Monday 2026-10-26. If the order is mailed to you, section 191 (3) deems it given on the fifth day after mailing, so a quarter of your window is gone before the paper is treated as having reached you at all. Section 225 (2) (d) does require the order to state "the time limit for applying under section 226 to the Board for a review of the work order", but nothing in section 225 (2) requires it to state the day it was issued, which is the date the clock actually runs from. That is a date you may have to ask for.
We have written separately on what to do when a work order arrives on an Ontario rental. The practical answer for a remote owner is dull and it works. Have the property's mail checked weekly by somebody local, make sure the municipality has a current mailing address and a phone number that reaches a person, and when an order does arrive, read the appeal paragraph before you read the work list. A clock you cannot see is the only kind you reliably miss.
In the ordinary course, no, and this is the item where distance costs you nothing at all.
The Board publishes three hearing formats. Its application and hearing process page states: "There are 3 types of hearings scheduled at the LTB: virtual hearings, written hearings and in-person hearings. In most cases, a virtual hearing will be scheduled. The LTB decides what type of hearing to hold." On virtual hearings it adds: "Virtual hearings can be attended by video using Zoom or by telephone. If the LTB schedules a virtual hearing, the notice of hearing will include a Zoom link and a telephone number. If you are not able to attend by Zoom, you can call in by telephone."
An in-person hearing is not something a party simply chooses. The same page says in-person hearings "are only scheduled based on approved accommodation requests", and that a party seeking one must establish a Human Rights Code related need such as a disability, or that an electronic hearing "will likely cause you significant prejudice and result in an unfair hearing". The underlying authority is the Tribunals Ontario Updated Practice Direction on Hearing Formats, which states that "all matters will proceed as written or electronic hearings" subject to an accommodation exception and to a party establishing "that the hearing format will result in an unfair hearing". The two documents word the second exception slightly differently, which is worth knowing if you ever need to argue it.
One caution on relying on that. The practice direction is dated November 30, 2020, and the Board's hearing page carries no last-updated stamp, only dated notices at the top. Remote is the published default, but read your own notice of hearing rather than assuming, because the notice is what governs your file. If you want to know what a tenant can put in front of an adjudicator once you are in that hearing, we have covered what a tenant can raise at an arrears hearing separately, and that is changing on 2026-09-21.
Sometimes, and this is a limit worth settling before you sign rather than after.
Tribunals Ontario's Practice Direction on Representation before the LTB, effective as of March 3, 2022, sets out who may represent a party. A lawyer or a paralegal licensed by the Law Society of Ontario may. An unlicensed person may only if they fall within a Law Society licensing exemption. The practice direction says "The current exemptions permit the following unlicensed persons, among others, to act as a representative", and the ones it names include a friend or neighbour "who is not in the business of providing legal services, who does not receive any compensation for the representation, and who provides legal services in no more than 3 matters in a year", a family member on similar terms, legal clinic staff and volunteers, and "an employee who is employed by a single employer and only provides legal services for and on behalf of the employer". Note the words "among others": the practice direction says a complete list is on the Law Society's website, so treat the named four as examples rather than the whole set.
The practice direction then addresses property managers directly: "An unlicensed person seeking to represent a landlord at an LTB proceeding on the basis that they are a property manager may not be allowed to represent the landlord if they are in fact engaged in the business of providing legal services to multiple third parties and do not fall within one of the LSO exemptions."
It also records a step that matters if you will not be on the call yourself: "An unlicensed person seeking to represent a party who is not present for the proceeding must provide the LTB with written authorization from the party."
So the question to ask any manager you are interviewing is a specific one. Who attends an LTB hearing on my file, are they a licensed paralegal or a lawyer, and is that included or billed separately. An answer along the lines of "we handle all that" is not an answer. At KEILTY we would rather you asked it of us and of everybody else you talk to, because an owner who finds out the answer on the morning of a hearing has found out too late.
More than the legal points above, and it is the part that does not appear in any statute.
A vacancy is a series of appointments. Photographs, showings, a condition report, keys, a walk-through with the incoming tenant, and then the trades who make the unit rentable between the two. Every one of those is an hour somebody has to be physically present in Belleville, and they cannot be batched into a single Saturday because they depend on each other in sequence. An owner who can do one trip a fortnight is running a process that needs several trips a week.
The law does put a duty in the picture. Section 16 of the Act: "When a landlord or a tenant becomes liable to pay any amount as a result of a breach of a tenancy agreement, the person entitled to claim the amount has a duty to take reasonable steps to minimize the person's losses." It runs both ways, and where a tenant has broken a lease it is the landlord who carries it. Re-letting promptly is not only good economics, it is a duty attached to the claim.
What a vacancy actually costs per day depends on the rent, the season and the market, and we work the arithmetic through in how much a vacant rental unit costs per day in Ontario. The point for this post is narrower: a day you add to a vacancy because you could not get there this week costs exactly what every other vacant day costs, and no invoice ever arrives to remind you of it.
Six things, and none of them is mysterious. We are setting them out plainly so you can judge whether you can do them yourself, because for some owners the answer is yes.
We put somebody local on the file, so entry notices are delivered by hand or left in the mail box rather than posted, which keeps section 191 (3) out of your timeline entirely. We check the property's mail and the municipal correspondence on a schedule, because a fourteen day appeal window under the Building Code Act starts running whether or not anybody has opened the envelope. We keep a trade list that answers the phone in that town, because a plumber who works in Belleville is worth more than a cheaper one who does not. We run the rent increases on a calendar rather than on memory, with the deposit and the section 106 (6) interest reconciled at the same time. We show the unit on the tenant's timetable rather than on ours. And we hold the keys, which sounds small and is the reason the other five work.
You can replicate a fair amount of that without a management company. A reliable local contact with a key, a mail redirection, a calendar reminder set 120 days before each anniversary, and a relationship with two trades will cover a good share of it. What is harder to replicate alone is the Friday afternoon, when the decision has to be made now and made by somebody who has seen the room. If you own a single well-maintained house with a long-tenured tenant, that Friday may come once every few years. If you own a duplex with turnover, it comes more often than that.
Our single-family rental service page sets out what is included, and there is no percentage on it, because we charge a flat monthly rate per unit that does not climb as the rent climbs.
Answer three questions and the decision gets a good deal easier.
First, how many events a year does this property generate? Count them for the last two years: repairs requiring a visit, turnovers, notices served, municipal correspondence, anything that needed somebody on site. An owner with two events a year and an owner with twenty are not having the same conversation.
Second, do you already have a local person, and what happens when they are away? A single trusted contact is a genuine solution right up to the week they are on holiday and the furnace fails. Ask yourself what your plan is for that week, and whether you have one.
Third, what is your own time worth, and would you rather be doing this? That is not a rhetorical question. Some owners like the work, know the building, enjoy the tenant relationship and would be worse off handing it over. Others bought a rental as an investment and discovered they had bought a second job in a city they do not live in. Both answers are legitimate. Only one of them is improved by hiring somebody.
Frankly, the first question is the one that does the work, because it is the only one that produces a number. Put actual costs against the events you counted and compare that total to what management would cost you. Distance on its own is not a reason to hire a manager. A list of specific, priced, recurring problems is.
Does mailing a notice really cost me five days? Yes. Section 191 (3) provides that a notice given by mail "shall be deemed to have been given on the fifth day after mailing", in calendar days. Leaving the same notice in the tenant's mail box under clause 191 (1) (d) is a separate method and is given on the day you do it.
Does Ontario law treat an absent landlord differently on repairs? No. Section 20 (1) contains no exception, and section 20 (2) applies it even where the tenant knew about the problem before signing. Interpretation Guideline 5 protects a landlord who could not reasonably have been expected to know of a problem, and it says nothing about geography.
How long do I have to appeal a property standards order? It depends which order it is. Where a municipal property standards by-law applies, section 15.3 (1) of the Building Code Act, 1992 gives 14 days from being served, by registered mail to the property standards committee, and an order not appealed in time is deemed confirmed. The 20 day route to the Board under section 226 (1) belongs to an inspector's work order under the Residential Tenancies Act, which section 224 (1) confines to complexes with no applicable municipal by-law.
Will I have to travel to an LTB hearing? In the ordinary course, no. The Board states that "In most cases, a virtual hearing will be scheduled", attended by Zoom or telephone, and that in-person hearings "are only scheduled based on approved accommodation requests". Read your notice of hearing, because it governs your file.
Can my property manager appear for me at the Board? Only if they are a licensed lawyer or paralegal, or fall within a Law Society exemption. The Board's practice direction warns that an unlicensed person acting as a property manager "may not be allowed to represent the landlord" where they are in the business of providing legal services to multiple third parties. Ask before you sign.
Not sure whether the distance is costing you more than it should? Tell us about the property through our free rental evaluation and A.J. Keilty will call you within 20 minutes during business hours, with a straight answer about what we would change and whether you need us at all.
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-09-13, 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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