Which Eviction Notices Can Your Tenant Cancel by Fixing the Problem?

Four sections of the Act let a tenant do that, and three of them are served on the N5. If you served an N5, your tenant can cancel it by fixing the problem within seven days, and the notice is then void. The N4 for arrears is voidable too, on a different mechanism and a different clock. If you served an N6 or an N7, there is no cure. The tenant cannot do anything to stop the notice, and you may apply to the Board the day you give it.

That one distinction decides when you can file, and it is the first thing to settle about a notice you have already served.

This is written for the owner of a house, a duplex or a small building in Eastern Ontario who has just served a notice for cause, or is about to. Each notice below is tied to the section of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 that creates it. The form code tells you almost nothing. The section tells you everything.

The short version.

• Among the notices for cause, three sections carry a cure: section 62 (damage), section 64 (substantial interference) and section 67 (too many persons), all served on the N5. The N4 for arrears is voidable as well, under subsection 59 (3).
• Sections 60, 61, 63, 65 and 66 carry no cure at all. Two of them say so expressly: subsection 63 (3) and subsection 65 (3) each disapply the cure provisions that would otherwise reach them.
• The seven days run from the day the tenant receives the notice, not from the day you give it. The Act deems a giving date for mail and never deems a receipt date, and our reading is that the Board's Rules do not close the gap.
• Section 70 bars you from applying to the Board on a section 62, 64 or 67 notice until the seven-day remedy period specified in the notice expires. On every other notice for cause, section 71 lets you apply immediately.
• Since 2026-09-21 the Board's power to postpone enforcement of an eviction order is constrained by regulation. On a notice for cause the test now includes compelling grounds.
• Handing the notice to the tenant removes the counting problem entirely, because nothing is then deemed.

Which of your notices can the tenant cancel by fixing the problem?

Three sections, and they are the three the N5 carries.

Section 62 is damage.

Subsection 62 (2) requires the notice to provide a termination date not earlier than the 20th day after the notice is given, and to set out the grounds.

Clause 62 (2) (c) adds the remedy, and it has two routes in it.

The notice must "require the tenant, within seven days, (i) to repair the damaged property or pay to the landlord the reasonable costs of repairing the damaged property, or (ii) to replace the damaged property or pay to the landlord the reasonable costs of replacing the damaged property, if it is not reasonable to repair the damaged property." Subsection 62 (3) then does the other half of the work. The notice "is void if the tenant, within seven days after receiving the notice, complies with the requirement referred to in clause (2) (c) or makes arrangements satisfactory to the landlord to comply with that requirement."

Read the last limb of that sentence, because it is the only place in this part of the Act where the cure runs through you. Arrangements satisfactory to the landlord also void the notice. An arrangement you accept is capable of voiding your own notice.

Section 64 is substantial interference. The notice runs on the same 20 days and must "require the tenant, within seven days, to stop the conduct or activity or correct the omission set out in the notice." Subsection 64 (3): the notice "is void if the tenant, within seven days after receiving the notice, stops the conduct or activity or corrects the omission."

Section 67 is too many persons. Its marginal heading is "Termination for cause, too many persons". Subsection 67 (1) is keyed to "the number of persons occupying the rental unit on a continuing basis" resulting in a contravention of health, safety or housing standards required by law. Again 20 days, again a seven-day requirement, and subsection 67 (3) voids the notice if the tenant "sufficiently reduces the number of persons occupying the rental unit."

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.

What does voiding a notice actually do to your file?

It ends it. A void notice is not a weakened notice or a notice you can still argue about. It cannot found an application, and the Board's own brochure puts it plainly: "The landlord cannot apply to the LTB to evict a tenant based on a void notice."

The cure is not a sliding scale: the notice is either void or it is not. But the test is not always literal completion. Subsection 67 (3) asks whether the tenant "sufficiently reduces" the number of occupants, and subsection 62 (3) accepts "arrangements satisfactory to the landlord".

If the tenant cures, you are back where you started. Your only route is a fresh notice on fresh grounds, or the further-contravention notice described below.

One practical consequence is worth stating early. The cure voids the notice rather than pausing it. A tenant who fixes the problem on day six has also reset the 20-day termination date you wrote. Nothing survives.

Which notices carry no cure at all?

Five sections, and they split across two forms.

The N6 carries section 60 and section 61. Section 60 is misrepresentation of income. It reaches only a rental unit described in paragraph 1, 2, 3 or 4 of subsection 7 (1), which is the social and assisted housing category. Its notice period is 20 days under subsection 60 (2). There is no subsection 60 (3), and nothing in section 60 gives the tenant anything to do.

Section 61 is the illegal act. Its notice period has two branches. Clause 61 (2) (a) sets the 10th day after the notice is given for a notice grounded on an illegal act, trade, business or occupation involving "the production of an illegal drug", "the trafficking in an illegal drug", or "the possession of an illegal drug for the purposes of trafficking". Clause 61 (2) (b) sets "the 20th day after the notice is given, in all other cases."

So the 10-day N6 is the drug branch only. Subsection 61 (3) defines each of those terms by reference to the federal Controlled Drugs and Substances Act.

The N7 carries sections 63, 65 and 66, and all three run on 10 days.

Section 63 opens "Despite section 62," and reaches two things rather than one.

Clause 63 (1) (a) is wilful undue damage. Clause 63 (1) (b) is use of the unit or complex "in a manner that is inconsistent with use as residential premises and that causes or can reasonably be expected to cause damage that is significantly greater than the damage that is required in order to give a notice of termination under clause (a) or subsection 62 (1)." That second branch reaches anticipated damage, so a section 63 notice does not require damage already done in every case.

Section 65 opens "Despite section 64," and is narrower than section 64 in two ways at once. It is available to "a landlord who resides in a building containing not more than three residential units", and the interference has to be with that landlord's own reasonable enjoyment or another of that landlord's lawful rights. Another tenant's complaint does not belong on a section 65 notice. It belongs on a section 64 one.

Section 66 is impairment of safety. Clause 66 (1) (a) reaches "an act or omission", so the marginal heading, "Termination for cause, act impairs safety", is narrower than the provision underneath it. Clause 66 (1) (b) requires that the act or omission occur in the residential complex.

Two of these five say out loud why they cannot be cured. Subsection 63 (3) reads: "Subsections 62 (2) and (3) do not apply to a notice given under this section." Subsection 65 (3) reads: "Subsections 64 (2) and (3) do not apply to a notice given under this section." Sections 60, 61 and 66 simply contain no cure machinery.

When do the tenant's seven days actually start?

This is the part that is not settled, and it is worth knowing before you write a date on anything.

The three cure provisions all run from receipt. Subsections 62 (3), 64 (3) and 67 (3) each say "within seven days after receiving the notice". But the requirement clauses one subsection earlier, 62 (2) (c), 64 (2) (c) and 67 (2) (c), say only "require the tenant, within seven days", with no event attached, and section 70 calls it "the seven-day remedy period specified in the notice".

Now look for the rule that tells you when a tenant receives something. Subsection 191 (3) provides: "A notice or document given by mail shall be deemed to have been given on the fifth day after mailing." That deems a giving date. It does not deem a receipt date.

Subsection 191 (2) can rescue a notice given the wrong way, but it too speaks of giving: 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."

Section 193 hands the computation of time to the Board: "Time shall be computed in accordance with the Rules." We read the Rules of Procedure at source on 2026-10-06, in the version stamped "Effective: September 1, 2021" and "Updated: September 21, 2026".

Rule 1.12 makes days calendar days "Where an LTB order or a Rule refers to a number of days", which is a limit worth noticing.

Rule 1.13 counts "by excluding the first day and including the last day". Rule 1.14 moves a deadline that ends on a holiday to the next day that is not one, and the Rules define a holiday as any Saturday, Sunday or other day on which the Board's offices are closed. Rule 1.15 provides that "A notice or document may be delivered to a party or person on a holiday and a notice may take effect on a holiday." Rule 1.16 makes all four unwaivable.

Those tell you how to count an interval. None of them tells you what event the interval starts from.

Rule 3.9 is the service rule, and it is expressed in service terms throughout. It lists the days on which a document "is considered served", and the first of them is the "fifth day after mailing". The heading above it is "When Documents are Served". The only rule in the whole set that deems a document received is Rule 16.7. That one is about a document filed with the Board after a successful request to extend or shorten time.

So the Act runs the cure from receipt, deems only a giving date, and sends counting to Rules that deem only a service date. Our own view is that the gap is real and unclosed. It is a reading of the provisions and the Rules together rather than something either source states outright.

What does that gap do to a real date?

Here is the arithmetic both ways, on a monthly tenancy in Cornwall, with an N5 served for damage under section 62.

You put the notice in the mail on Monday 2027-03-01. Under subsection 191 (3) and Rule 3.9 it is given, and served, on the fifth day after mailing, which is 2027-03-06, a Saturday. Rule 1.15 says a notice may be delivered on a holiday and may take effect on one, so that Saturday stands rather than rolling forward.

The termination date comes next and it is the easy one. Clause 62 (2) (a) requires a date not earlier than the 20th day after the notice is given. Counted from 2027-03-06 under Rule 1.13, that is 2027-03-26, a Friday.

The seven days are the hard one. If you count them from the deemed date of 2027-03-06, the seventh day is 2027-03-13, a Saturday. Reading Rule 1.14 as reaching a cure period the Act rather than the Rules created, which is our reading and not something the Rules say, that carries the tenant's last day to Monday 2027-03-15. If instead the tenant actually took the envelope out of the mailbox on Wednesday 2027-03-03, and the words "after receiving the notice" are read as they are written, the seventh day is 2027-03-10.

There is a way out of all of this, and it costs nothing. Subsection 191 (1) lets you give a notice "by handing it to the person", or, where the person is a tenant, "by handing it to an apparently adult person in the rental unit". Hand it over and nothing is deemed, because there is no mailing to deem anything from.

Five days apart, on the same notice. And section 70 does not resolve it for you, because it is keyed to the period you wrote: you may not apply "before the seven-day remedy period specified in the notice expires".

The practical answer is to count from the deemed date, which is the later of the two, and to write that date on the notice. You lose nothing by being generous with a period the statute sets as a minimum, and you lose an application by being five days early.

What happens if you apply to the Board too early?

On the three curable notices, section 70 is an express bar: "A landlord may not apply to the Board for an order terminating a tenancy and evicting the tenant based on a notice of termination under section 62, 64 or 67 before the seven-day remedy period specified in the notice expires."

Note what it is keyed to. Not the cure right, and not the termination date. The remedy period specified in the notice. Our reading is that an owner who writes a shorter period than seven days has not bought an earlier filing date: section 70 names a seven-day remedy period, and a notice giving less has not given the period the section is keyed to.

Everywhere else the position reverses. Section 71 provides: "Subject to section 70 and subsection 74 (1), a landlord who has served a notice of termination may apply immediately to the Board under section 69 for an order terminating the tenancy and evicting the tenant." On an N6 or an N7 you can file the same day you serve.

The Board's own brochure says the same thing: "If the landlord gave the tenant a notice to end the tenancy that cannot be voided, the landlord can file their application as soon as they give the notice to the tenant."

Subsection 74 (1) is the other exception named in section 71, and it runs the opposite way on arrears: no application on a section 59 notice "before the day following the termination date specified in the notice".

Which notice to use, and how to get it served so the date you wrote is the date that counts, is in how to serve a notice to a tenant in Ontario. How weekends and holidays move the deadlines that follow is in whether a weekend or a holiday extends an LTB deadline.

Section 212 is worth a line here, because owners reach for it. Subsection 212 (1) makes substantial compliance "respecting the contents of forms, notices or documents" sufficient, and subsection 212 (2), in force since 2024-12-04, confirms "For greater certainty" that an error in the contents "still constitutes substantial compliance with this Act, as long as the error does not significantly prejudice a party's ability to participate in a proceeding under this Act."

Both speak to the contents of a form or notice. We would not rely on either to save a notice period that is too short, or an application filed before section 70 allows it, and neither point has been settled against us.

Does a second notice within six months remove the cure?

Yes, and the gate on it is narrower than the form codes suggest.

Section 68 is the further-contravention notice, and it has two halves that do not match. Clause 68 (1) (a) requires that "a notice of termination was given to the tenant under section 62, 64 or 67". Those are the three curable sections and no others, so a previous N6 or N7 cannot be the predicate.

Clause 68 (1) (b) is wider. The second event has to be conduct or a situation constituting grounds for a notice "under section 60, 61, 62, 64 or 67", and it carves out the drug branch: "other than an activity, conduct or a situation that is described in subsection 61 (1) and that involves an illegal act, trade, business or occupation described in clause 61 (2) (a)."

The timing is its own trap. The second event has to happen "more than seven days but less than six months after the notice mentioned in clause (a) was given to the tenant". More than seven days, so a contravention during the cure window does not count. The six months run from when the first notice was given, not from receipt and not from its termination date.

Subsection 68 (2) sets the notice period: not earlier than the 14th day after the notice is given. There is no subsection 68 (3), and nothing in section 68 gives the tenant a way to void it. That is the whole point of it.

Do the Board's own materials agree with the Act on the N6?

On the substance, yes, and the point is worth reading slowly because it is easy to get backwards.

We read the brochure "How a Landlord Can End a Tenancy" at source on 2026-10-06, stamped "Last updated: September 21, 2026". Its row for a non-drug illegal act, which it routes to the N6, gives the minimum notice period as "20 days (1st notice)If this is the 2nd notice within 6 months and the first notice had a 7-day correction period, the termination date must be at least 14 days after the tenant receives the notice."

That reads at first like an error, because section 68 is keyed to the sections the N5 carries. It is not an error. The precondition is about the first notice, not about the N6. An N5 under section 62, 64 or 67 satisfies clause 68 (1) (a), and clause 68 (1) (b) then lets the second event be grounds under section 60, 61, 62, 64 or 67, with the drug branch carved out.

So an N5 followed within six months by a non-drug illegal act, or by a misrepresentation of income, is a section 68 notice on 14 days. The Board's own N6 instructions, stamped "Updated: September 21, 2026", say the same thing in almost the same words and work an example on it.

The divergence worth flagging is narrower, and it is the same one that runs through everything above. The brochure counts those 14 days from when "the tenant receives the notice". Subsection 68 (2) counts them from when the notice is given, and so do the N6 instructions.

The N5 instructions have the same split inside one document. Its section B counts the seven days from giving, as in "on or after the 8th day after giving the tenant this notice", while its section D counts them from receipt, as in "corrects the problem within 7 days of receiving this notice". The instructions apply the five-day mail rule to the termination date and never to the seven days.

The instructions also put the second-N5 rule in the sharpest terms of the two documents. On a second N5: "the tenant cannot void this notice and you can apply to the LTB to terminate the tenancy and evict the tenant as soon as you have given the notice to the tenant."

Can the Board still refuse or postpone your eviction?

Yes, and this is where a notice that cannot be cured still fails to deliver possession. The postponement half of it changed on 2026-09-21, and what the regulation adds is a further condition the Board has to be satisfied of before it postpones. What that will mean in practice is not yet on the record.

Subsection 83 (1) gives the Board two powers "despite any other provision of this Act or the tenancy agreement". Clause (a) is refusal: refuse the application "unless satisfied, having regard to all the circumstances, that it would be unfair to refuse". Clause (b) is postponement, and it now opens "subject to any prescribed limitations or conditions", words added by 2025, c. 14, Sched. 12, s. 7.

Something has been prescribed. Section 8.4 of Ontario Regulation 516/06, added by O. Reg. 241/26, s. 5, provides that the Board may order a postponement under clause 83 (1) (b) "only if the landlord consents to the postponement or if the following conditions are satisfied".

Paragraph 1 covers an application on a notice under section 48, 49 or 50 and requires the Board to be satisfied that postponement "would not be unfair to the landlord or other tenants of the residential complex". Paragraph 2 covers every other application, including every notice in this post, and requires both that no-unfairness finding and, in its subparagraph ii, that "there are compelling grounds to postpone the enforcement of the eviction order."

So on an N5, N6 or N7, postponement now needs compelling grounds on top of fairness. That regulation's consolidation period begins 2026-09-21, the same day the enabling words went into clause 83 (1) (b).

The refusal power in clause 83 (1) (a) was not touched and is not constrained by that regulation.

Subsection 83 (2) still requires the Board, wherever a hearing is held, to review the circumstances and consider whether to exercise its subsection (1) powers before granting anything. And subsection 83 (3) still requires refusal in five listed circumstances. The first is where "the landlord is in serious breach of the landlord's responsibilities under this Act or of any material covenant in the tenancy agreement". Others cover an application brought because the tenant complained to a governmental authority or attempted to enforce their legal rights.

One benefit attaches to the uncurable notices and is easy to miss. Section 84 applies to an order based on a drug-branch section 61 notice, or on a notice under section 63, 65 or 66. On such an order the Board shall "request that the sheriff expedite the enforcement of the order". It is expressly "Subject to clause 83 (1) (b)", so a postponement still outranks it.

Does any of this change which notice you should serve?

It changes the trade, and the trade is worth naming, because it is easy to see only one side of it.

An N5 for damage buys you a 20-day notice period and hands the tenant a seven-day exit. An N7 under clause 63 (1) (a) for the same damage buys you a 10-day notice period, no cure, and an immediate right to file. It also moves your burden. You now have to prove the damage was wilful rather than wilful or negligent.

The Board's brochure says so in its own words, advising that if a landlord "cannot prove that the damage was wilful, the application will be dismissed", and that an unsure landlord "may consider giving the tenant the 20-day notice of termination for wilful or negligent damage (Form N5) instead."

There is a second asymmetry on the same facts. Subsection 80 (1) ordinarily bars an eviction order effective earlier than the termination date in the notice.

Subsection 80 (2) lets an order be effective earlier in two cases. One is an order based on clause 63 (1) (a) where the Board determines the damage was significantly greater than that clause required. The other is an order based on clause 63 (1) (b) or subsection 66 (1). So the N7 route can also compress the back end, not only the front.

What it does not do is make the proof easier. We would rather serve a curable notice that holds than an uncurable notice that gets dismissed. The choice between them is an evidence question, answered before anything goes out the door. The other half of the same decision, what you can and cannot charge a tenant for, is in whether a landlord can charge a tenant for damage in Ontario.

One more thing an owner cannot check from the publisher. We read the Board's forms page at source on 2026-10-06. It carries no visible last-updated stamp of any kind, and the visible row text for the N5, N6 and N7 carries no version string, revision code or date.

That matters because the Act now cares about versions. Subsection 43 (1) requires a notice of termination to be "in a form approved by the Board, unless the form of the notice is prescribed in which case the notice shall be in the prescribed form", words added with effect from 2026-07-01, and O. Reg. 308/26 then prescribes "version 1" of the N4. The regulation names a version and the page that hands you the file names none.

What should you do before the notice goes out?

Four things, and they take less time than fixing any one of them afterwards.

Decide the section before the form. The form codes group sections that behave differently: one N5 covers three sections with a cure, one N6 covers two sections without one, and one N7 covers three more. Write the section number on your own file copy.

Write the seven-day period on the notice as a date rather than a duration. Count it from the deemed giving date rather than from a receipt date you cannot prove. Then diary the eighth day as your earliest filing date.

Diary the termination date separately, and the 30 days that follow it, because subsection 69 (2) will not wait for you. At KEILTY Realty Management we have been managing Ontario rentals since 2003. Every notice we serve goes into a diary with its section number, its remedy-period expiry, its termination date and its filing limit, before it leaves the office. We charge a flat monthly rate per unit rather than a percentage of the rent.

And keep the evidence in the shape the section needs. Wilful rather than negligent, in the complex rather than near it, on a continuing basis rather than on one evening. A notice is only as good as the thing you can prove at the hearing, and no amount of diary discipline substitutes for that.

What do owners ask about voidable eviction notices?

Which eviction notices can a tenant void in Ontario? Among the notices for cause, only those under section 62 (damage), section 64 (substantial interference) and section 67 (too many persons), all of which are served on the N5. The tenant voids one by doing what the notice required within seven days after receiving it, under subsections 62 (3), 64 (3) and 67 (3). The N4 for arrears is voidable as well, under subsection 59 (3), if the tenant pays before the landlord applies.

Can a tenant void an N6 or an N7? No. Sections 60 and 61, which the N6 carries, and sections 63, 65 and 66, which the N7 carries, contain no cure. Subsection 63 (3) and subsection 65 (3) expressly disapply the cure provisions, and section 71 lets the landlord apply to the Board immediately.

When do the seven days start if the notice was mailed? Our reading is that the Act does not say. Subsections 62 (3), 64 (3) and 67 (3) run the seven days from receiving the notice. Subsection 191 (3) deems only a giving date, the fifth day after mailing, and LTB Rule 3.9 deems only a service date. Counting from the deemed date is the safer course because section 70 keys the filing bar to the period written on the notice.

Can I apply to the Board the day I serve the notice? On an N6 or an N7, yes, under section 71. On an N5 under section 62, 64 or 67, no: section 70 bars an application until the seven-day remedy period specified in the notice expires. On an N4 for arrears, subsection 74 (1) bars an application until the day after the termination date.

Does a second notice within six months take away the cure? Yes, but only if the first notice was given under section 62, 64 or 67. The second event also has to happen more than seven days and less than six months after that first notice was given. Section 68 then allows a notice on 14 days with no cure.

If you are holding a notice and are not sure which section it runs on, or when you can file, that is a short conversation rather than a research project. Get in touch and we will walk through the dates with you.

This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-10-06, not legal advice. Legislation, regulations and tribunal practice change. For advice on a specific property or situation, speak with a lawyer or licensed paralegal.