By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
A posting does not end a lease in Ontario. Nothing in the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 lets a tenant leave a fixed term early because the Canadian Armed Forces has moved them, so a member posted out of 8 Wing Trenton in March on a lease running to August still owes rent to August. What actually decides your number is not the posting at all. It is three things: whether you used the Ontario Standard Lease, how fast you re-rent, and whether you file inside a year.
The second is the one that moves the number furthest. The moment a new tenant is entitled to occupy, a statutory cap cuts the old tenant's liability off at that date. So the question a Trenton owner should be asking in the first week is not what the lease says. It is how quickly the unit can be back in service, and what the Crown will pay toward the gap.
The short version.
No. Section 37 (1) is short and unforgiving: "A tenancy may be terminated only in accordance with this Act." Section 47 then allows a tenant to terminate only "at the end of a period of the tenancy or at the end of the term of a tenancy for a fixed term", and section 44 (4) fixes the date exactly. A tenant's notice under section 47 to end a fixed term "shall be given at least 60 days before the expiration date specified in the tenancy agreement, to be effective on that expiration date". Not before it, not after it.
Section 44 (5) is the one softener: a notice specifying the last day of February or March counts as 60 days if it is given by January 1 or February 1 respectively.
We read the whole Act on 2026-10-01 to check the negative rather than assume it. Across the consolidation, the strings military, armed forces, Canadian Forces, posting, posted, relocation, deploy, station and reservist return zero hits each, and the same is true of all eight regulations made under the Act.
The Act does lift the section 44 and section 47 constraints, but only in three places, and each names its ground expressly: section 47.0.1, the standard lease route; section 47.1, violence or another form of abuse; and section 47.2, the joint tenancy version of the same ground. Two further routes exist and neither is reached by a posting: section 96, where you refuse or ignore an assignment request, and section 145, for a tenant of a care home.
Two provisions look like they might help and do not. Sections 93 and 94 do end a tenancy on the day employment ends, but only for superintendent's premises, meaning a unit provided to a janitor, manager or security guard for the complex itself. Section 58 lets a landlord, not a tenant, end a tenancy at the end of a term where an employer provided the unit during employment.
Neither reaches a member renting a civilian house in Trenton.
The provision that settles it outright is section 3 (1), under which this Act, except Part V.1, "applies with respect to rental units in residential complexes, despite any other Act and despite any agreement or waiver to the contrary", with section 3 (4) giving the Act the upper hand where it conflicts with another Act other than the Human Rights Code. So the answer does not rest on a word search. It rests on the Act saying it governs whatever else is in play.
Ask whether you used the Ontario Standard Lease, and whether both parties signed it on or before the day the tenant became entitled to occupy, which is what section 12.1 (2) requires. If the answer is no, the posting is beside the point, because your tenant may already have a lawful way out.
For tenancies entered into on or after 2018-04-30, section 12.1 (1) requires the prescribed form. Where a lease does not comply, the tenant can demand a compliant one in writing under section 12.1 (5). After 21 days they can withhold up to one month's rent under sections 12.1 (6) and (7). They can then end a yearly or fixed term early under section 47.0.1, on at least 60 days' notice to the last day of a rental period.
Read section 47.0.1 (1) (b) (ii) carefully before you relax: the exit is available even where you comply with the demand, if the tenant simply does not sign the lease you hand over. The 30-day window in section 47.0.1 (2) runs from the day you hand over a proposed agreement, so it limits that second branch only. If you never comply with the demand at all, the first branch carries no such limit.
Two points run the owner's way. The demand may be made "once during the tenancy" and no more. And section 12.1 (9) lets you require the withheld rent back if you comply no later than 30 days after the date of the first withheld payment, which section 12.1 (10) preserves even if the tenant then declines to sign. That is a short, hard window and it is worth diarizing.
A compliant Standard Lease closes the route completely, because section 12.1 (5) is available only to a tenant whose agreement does not comply, so no demand can be made and neither limb of section 47.0.1 can engage.
Our fuller walk-through of that chain is in do you have to use the Ontario Standard Lease. The point here is the order of operations: check the lease before you price the claim.
Ask to assign, or ask to sublet. Both are open inside a fixed term. Sections 95 (9) and 97 (6) each apply their section "with respect to all tenants, regardless of whether their tenancies are periodic, fixed, contractual or statutory, but does not apply with respect to a tenant of superintendent's premises".
The clock is the part to diarize. Under section 95 (4), if the tenant asks you to consent to an assignment and you refuse, or you do not respond within seven days, the tenant may give notice under section 96 within 30 days of the request, and section 96 (2) sets that notice at the lesser of the usual period and 30 days.
Silence for a week is therefore a decision, and it is the expensive one. Note the distinction, because it decides who holds the exit. Refusing one named candidate under clause 95 (3) (b) does not hand the tenant the section 96 exit.
It is a blanket refusal under clause (3) (c), or no answer at all, that does. Refusing a specific person is not risk-free either. The tenant may apply under section 98, and on that application the Board may authorize the assignment, authorize a different one, order an abatement of rent, or order the tenancy terminated outright, under section 98 (3). The test is whether the refusal was arbitrary or unreasonable.
What you may charge is narrow and identical on both routes. Sections 95 (7) and 97 (3) each allow "only for the landlord's reasonable out-of-pocket expenses" incurred in giving the consent.
A credit check you actually paid for is defensible. A transfer fee, an administration fee or a month's rent as the price of saying yes is not.
Which consent you give decides who you can chase afterwards. On an assignment, section 95 (8) (b) leaves the departing tenant liable only for breaches relating to the period before the assignment, so they are released going forward. On a sublet, section 97 (4) (a) keeps the tenant liable to you throughout. The mechanics of consenting, and the difference between the sublet test and the assignment test, are set out in can a tenant sublet or assign their lease.
One thing you cannot do is write your way around any of it. Section 37 (4) voids a tenant's notice given at the time the agreement is entered into or as a condition of entering into it, and section 37 (5) does the same to an agreement to terminate. A military clause signed at lease signing is void both ways. Section 15 separately strikes a term making the remaining rent fall due on default, so a lease-break penalty clause is not available either.
One route is open, and it sits at the opposite end of the timeline. Section 194 (2) provides that a settlement reached at the Board "may contain provisions that contravene any provision under this Act", subject to the rent-increase restriction in section 194 (3). What you cannot write into a lease at the start, you may be able to agree at the Board at the end.
Rent to the end of the term, and the route is section 88 (1) rule 2. Read its opening words first, because they are a condition. Section 88 (1) applies where a tenant vacates without a compliant notice "and no agreement to terminate has been made or the landlord has not given notice to terminate the tenancy". Sign an agreement to terminate and you are outside the section altogether.
Inside it, arrears run to the earliest termination date the tenant could have specified had they given proper notice on the day you knew or ought to have known they had gone.
The rule names section 47, 96 or 145, "as the case may be". Where the tenant made no assignment request, that is section 47, and section 44 (4) puts the date on the lease expiry. Where the tenant did ask and you refused or stayed silent, the route is section 96, and section 96 (2) sets it at 30 days. On the illustration below, that is the difference between five months and one.
You claim it under section 87 (1) for arrears. Section 87 (3), compensation for use and occupation, is the overholding remedy and arises only where the tenant was in possession after the tenancy ended, so it does not reach a member who hands back the keys; where it does apply, its deadline is section 87 (3.1). Section 87 (1.1) is the deadline for arrears, and it is the one owners miss: an application may be made while the tenant is in possession, or "no later than one year after the tenant or former tenant ceased to be in possession of the rental unit".
The deposit shrinks the figure before anyone argues. Section 106 (10) requires that a landlord "shall apply a rent deposit that a tenant has paid to the landlord or to a former landlord in payment of the rent for the last rent period before the tenancy terminates", so a last-month deposit is already spent on the final period and is not yours to claim again.
In an order for termination together with arrears, section 87 (4) separately requires the Board to subtract the deposit and its interest.
Section 207 (1) caps the amount, and it states a formula rather than a figure: the Board may order payment "up to the greater of $10,000 and the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court". The second limb is set under the Courts of Justice Act and we have not read that regulation, so we are not printing a number for it.
Before you file, read section 207 (3) as well. Claim at or under the Board's limit and all your rights above it are extinguished once the order issues.
Section 207 (2) is the alternative, allowing a claim above that jurisdiction to be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction, which may exercise the Board's powers. That is a decision to make before the application, not after.
Three things, and only one of them is arithmetic.
Begin with the one that is argument, because it is capable of being the largest. Section 87 (2) applies section 82, with necessary modifications, to an arrears application, so at the hearing the tenant may raise anything they could have brought in their own application, maintenance, interference with reasonable enjoyment, an illegal charge, and have it set against what you claim. A five-month arrears claim meets whatever the tenant has been living with.
The second is arithmetic rather than argument. Section 88 (3) opens with its own override: "Despite subsections (1) and (2), if the landlord enters into a new tenancy agreement with a new tenant with respect to the rental unit, the tenant who abandoned or vacated the rental unit is not liable to pay an amount of arrears of rent that exceeds the lesser of the following amounts", being the figure under subsection (1) or (2), or "The amount of arrears of rent owing for the period that ends on the date the new tenant is entitled to occupy the rental unit".
Sign a new tenant and the old tenant's exposure is capped at the day that tenant may move in. There is a second reason to want that date early: section 113 sets the lawful rent for a new tenancy as the rent first charged to the new tenant.
Section 16, headed "Minimize losses", is the second layer and it works differently. It provides that where a landlord or tenant becomes liable to pay an amount for a breach, "the person entitled to claim the amount has a duty to take reasonable steps to minimize the person's losses". It binds whoever is claiming, which here is you. It does not say re-rent, and the only place the Act ties it to re-renting is section 88 (4), which requires that consideration be given to whether the landlord took reasonable steps in accordance with section 16.
Note how far section 88 (4) reaches. It applies "in determining the amount of arrears of rent owing under subsections (1), (2) and (3)", so the minimization enquiry runs over the capped figure as well as the uncapped one. Re-renting caps the number. It does not put the number beyond question.
Work it through. Take a Trenton house on a fixed term expiring 31 August at an illustrative $2,100 a month. The tenant is posted and hands you the keys on 31 March, five months short. Five months at $2,100 is $10,500. If you hold a last-month deposit, section 106 (10) has already applied it to the final rent period, so the figure you can claim is four months, or $8,400.
Re-rent from 1 June and section 88 (3) cuts it to the two months to 31 May, or $4,200. Leave it empty and you are arguing for the whole of it under section 88 (4), and against whatever section 82 brings. The figures are chosen to show the method; use your own rent and your own dates.
Divide the annual rent by the number of days in the year and you have the daily number to put on every decision in this post. The illustrative $2,100 a month is $25,200 a year, which is about $69 a day in an ordinary year and a little under that in a leap year.
A whole month empty costs a month's rent, $2,100; the daily figure is for the odd days and for pricing a delay. Seven days of not answering an assignment request is roughly $483 of exposure, plus whatever the section 96 route then costs you.
Season is part of the arithmetic in Trenton, because the tenant pool moves on a cycle. The Government of Canada uses the term Active Posting Season, in both its Active and Annual forms, on its own pages, and the Relocation Directive takes a new effective date each 1 April. It does not publish the months of the season, so we are not going to tell you what they are.
What the pattern means for an owner is set out on our Trenton property management page, which carries the local demand picture. The operative point for this post is narrower: a unit that comes back on the market inside the moving window re-lets faster, which collapses the section 88 (3) cap sooner, which is money.
Yes, within limits, and the ceiling is set by Ontario law rather than by the Department of National Defence. Article 7.03 of the Canadian Armed Forces Relocation Directive, effective 2026-04-01, provides that where "a member incurs rent or lease liability expenses in order to dispose of rented residence, the member is entitled to be reimbursed from the Core Account for an amount up to the maximum amount the landlord may charge under the applicable legislation relating to tenants."
Read that last clause again, because it closes a loop. The federal reimbursement is capped at what you may lawfully charge under the Act. Everything in the two sections above, the section 88 (3) cap and the section 87 one-year window, is therefore also the limit on what the Crown will pay.
Article 7.03 adds a second boundary of its own: the expenses are reimbursable "for the period of time commencing on the load or clean day (whichever is later) to the end of the paid vacancy". The federal money runs until the unit stops being vacant, which is the same incentive the Act already gives you.
Do not reach for the two-month figure you may have seen quoted elsewhere. It comes from the Compensation and Benefits Instructions at 208.955 (3), and the section it sits in applies, by 208.80 (1), only to a member "to whom Section 9 (Canadian Armed Forces Relocation Directive (CAFRD)) does not apply". The two instruments are alternatives, not layers. A member relocating under the Directive is governed by article 7.03, whose ceiling is Ontario law, rather than by a two-month cap.
One exclusion carries across in substance and is worth knowing before you build expectations. Reimbursement of this kind is for rent and lease liability, "other than for damages". A damage claim is yours to pursue in the ordinary way, and nothing here backstops it.
No, and this is the part owners get wrong in both directions. The Relocation Directive names no landlord letter, form, certificate or signature anywhere. What it asks of the member is a receipt, defined at 2.9.04 as an acknowledgement showing the service provider, the service rendered, the payment date and the amount, and it expressly allows a substitute: "A member who is reasonably unable to provide a receipt for an expense may submit a personal declaration in lieu of a receipt."
So you are not a gatekeeper and you have no leverage there. You do have an interest, though, because a member who gets reimbursed pays you, and a member who cannot evidence the payment may not. Issue a dated receipt for whatever is actually paid, being an acknowledgement of money paid showing the service provider, the service rendered, the payment date and the amount. A statement of what is still owed is not a receipt and will not do the same job.
Four things, and none of them is a legal argument.
Confirm the move-out date in writing the day you hear about it, because section 88 (1) rule 2 measures from the date you knew or ought to have known. Answer any assignment request inside seven days, in writing, and deliver it by a method that takes effect at once, because a document given by mail is deemed given only on the fifth day after mailing under section 191 (3).
Silence on an assignment request is the one response that hands the tenant the section 96 exit. A sublet request carries no equivalent seven-day rule.
Start marketing while the tenant is still in the unit, since every day earlier you re-let is a day off both the section 88 (3) figure and the federal claim. And agree in writing what the final account is, so the member has something to file, but word it as a statement of account rather than as an agreement to terminate, because an agreement to terminate takes you outside section 88 (1) altogether.
Resist one temptation. Do not serve an N12 as a tidy way of papering a departure you already have. You do not need one, and section 57 (6.1) now presumes, unless the contrary is proven on a balance of probabilities, that the notice was given in bad faith where no qualifying person occupies the unit within the period prescribed by O. Reg. 240/26, with exposure under section 57 (3) that includes general compensation of up to twelve months of the last rent charged, payable whether or not the former tenant incurred any expense.
If you are genuinely taking the unit for your own use later, note the newer rule in the other direction: section 48.1 (2), in force 2026-09-21, removes the one month's compensation requirement where the N12 gives at least 120 days and ends on a period or term end. More notice is now cheaper than less.
The risk is letting someone move in and doing nothing about it. If the posted member hands the keys to a friend, you have 60 days from discovering it. Section 100 (2) gives you 60 days to apply to end the tenancy, and section 104 (3) gives you the same 60 days to negotiate a new agreement with lawful rent reset under sections 113 and 114.
Miss those, and the section 101 application where a subtenancy has ended, and section 104 (4) deems the occupancy to be an assignment with your consent, back-dated to the day it began. Your departing tenant is then released for anything after that date under section 95 (8) (b), a stranger is your tenant at the old rent, and the rent reset is gone. Sixty days from discovery is the whole window.
This is the decision the statute actually rewards thinking about, and the pressure runs the opposite way to instinct. A fixed term feels like security. It is also a cage you share. Section 48 (2) requires an own-use termination date to fall at the end of a period of the tenancy or, on a fixed term, at the end of the term. In a market whose demand moves on a posting cycle, a fixed term expiring in the wrong month means you cannot serve an effective notice except on one day a year.
Section 38 (1) gives you the alternative at no cost. When a fixed term ends without renewal or termination, landlord and tenant "shall be deemed to have renewed it as a monthly tenancy agreement containing the same terms and conditions that are in the expired tenancy agreement and subject to any increases in rent charged in accordance with this Act". The tenancy continues on your terms, and section 44 (2) then gives you the same 60 days' notice with none of the rigidity.
So the shape that works for a Trenton rental has three parts. Use the Ontario Standard Lease and have both parties sign it on or before the day the tenant may occupy, which closes the section 47.0.1 exposure entirely. Set the first fixed term to expire in a window you can re-let into. Then let section 38 (1) carry it month to month rather than signing successive fixed terms. If the property is a house or a duplex, the economics of that choice, and who carries the turnover work, are on our single-family rental management page.
One note on sources, applied to all of them rather than to one. The Act and its regulations were read in the e-Laws consolidation on 2026-10-01, which then ran from 2026-09-21. The Relocation Directive and the Compensation and Benefits Instructions were read in their published HTML that day, not in the PDF, and Part 3 of the Directive, to which chapter 7 is subject, was not read.
The Small Claims Court figure under section 207 (1) has not been verified on our side and so is not printed. The Government of Canada does not publish the months of the Active Posting Season, so we have not stated them.
Can a military posting break a lease in Ontario? No. Read on 2026-10-01, nothing in the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 or the eight regulations then made under it creates an early exit for a posting, a transfer or a new job. A tenant in a fixed term may assign, may sublet, or may agree with you to end it, and otherwise the term runs.
How much can I claim if the tenant leaves early? Rent to the end of the term under section 88 (1), capped by section 88 (3) at the date a new tenant may occupy. Section 88 (4) applies the minimization enquiry to that figure, section 106 (10) applies any last-month deposit, and section 87 (2) opens it to set-off. Section 87 (1.1) gives you one year from the tenant ceasing to be in possession.
Will the Canadian Armed Forces reimburse my tenant for breaking the lease? Article 7.03 of the Relocation Directive reimburses lease liability up to the maximum the landlord may charge under the applicable tenancy legislation, for the period from the load or clean day to the end of the paid vacancy. The two-month figure in the Compensation and Benefits Instructions belongs to a different route, which by 208.80 (1) reaches only a member the Directive does not cover.
Do I have to sign anything for my tenant to claim it? No. The Directive names no landlord document and allows the member to file a personal declaration where a receipt cannot reasonably be obtained. Issuing a dated receipt for what was actually paid helps the claim go through, which is in your interest.
Should I put a military clause in the lease? It will not work. Section 37 (4) voids a tenant's notice given at the time the agreement is entered into or as a condition of entering into it, section 37 (5) does the same to an agreement to terminate, and section 15 strikes a term accelerating the remaining rent on default.
If you own a rental in Trenton or anywhere in Quinte West and would rather not run this yourself, tell us about the property through our free rental evaluation. A.J. Keilty calls within 20 minutes in business hours with a realistic rent range, and the written evaluation follows within 24 hours.
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-10-01, 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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