By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
If you own a condominium unit and rent it out in Ontario, you are working under two rulebooks and three forums. The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 governs everything between you and your tenant. The Condominium Act, 1998 governs everything between you and the corporation. And which body hears a complaint about your tenant depends on what the complaint is about, not on who is making it.
The short answer is this. The corporation can put money onto your unit without asking anyone, and it can take your rent at source. It cannot remove your tenant. But the lever you reach for against a rule-breaking tenant is often the wrong one: an eviction application at the Landlord and Tenant Board costs $201, while a Condominium Authority Tribunal application about pets, parking, storage or noise costs $25, and you are allowed to bring one against your own tenant.
Below is who does what, what each route costs, and where the two statutes leave a question genuinely open. Everything cited was read at source on 2026-09-24.
The short version.
The corporation's job is set out in section 17 of the Condominium Act, 1998. Subsection (1) says its objects "are to manage the property and the assets, if any, of the corporation on behalf of the owners." Subsection (2) says it "has a duty to control, manage and administer the common elements and the assets of the corporation." Subsection (3) adds a duty "to take all reasonable steps to ensure that the owners, the occupiers of units, the lessees of the common elements and the agents and employees of the corporation comply with this Act, the declaration, the by-laws and the rules."
So the corporation runs the building envelope, the hallways, the elevators and the roof, and it insures under section 99 (1), which requires insurance "for damage to the units and common elements that is caused by major perils or the other perils that the declaration or the by-laws specify."
Here is the part owners get wrong. None of that reduces your obligation to your tenant. RTA section 20 (1) 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." Section 20 has two subsections and neither carves anything out. There is no "except where another person is responsible", no reference to a condominium corporation, no exclusion for common elements.
The definition then works against you. "Residential complex" in RTA section 2 (1) ends with the words "includes all common areas and services and facilities available for the use of its residents". In a condominium that pulls the common elements inside the thing you are statutorily responsible for maintaining.
If the elevator has been out for three weeks and your tenant files a T2, the answer that the corporation controls the elevator is not a defence written anywhere in section 20. It is a practical problem you have to solve with a board you do not sit on. That is our reading of the two provisions together rather than something either statute states outright.
One caveat. RTA section 5 exempts a list of accommodation from the Act entirely. No clause exempts condominium units as such, but clause (i) can reach a unit where the occupant shares a bathroom or kitchen with the owner or a close family member living there, and clause (n) is a catch-all for "any other prescribed class of accommodation." Check it against your own arrangement.
The other asymmetry is insurance. Section 99 (4) says: "The obligation to insure under subsection (1) does not include insurance for damage to improvements made to a unit." Section 99 (5) measures an improvement "by reference to a standard unit for the class of unit to which the unit belongs", and section 99 (6) then points to the standard unit by-law under clause 56 (1) (h) or, failing that, the declarant's schedule.
If the previous owner put in engineered floors and quartz counters, those may sit outside the corporation's policy entirely. Read the standard unit by-law before deciding what your own policy must cover. For the shape of the repair obligation, see our guide to what repairs a landlord is responsible for in Ontario.
RTA section 3 (1) is as strong as statutory language gets: "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." Part V.1 is the non-profit housing co-operative Part, so for a condominium the Act applies in full.
Section 3 (4) then deals with conflict: "If a provision of this Act conflicts with a provision of another Act, other than the Human Rights Code, the provision of this Act applies."
Read those together and the RTA beats the Condominium Act, 1998 on a genuine conflict. But notice what section 3 (4) is about. It speaks of another Act, and a declaration, a by-law under section 56 and a rule under section 58 are none of them Acts.
So section 3 (4) does not resolve a clash between the RTA and your corporation's governing documents, and nothing else in the RTA does either. That question is unresolved on the text of both statutes, and we are not going to pretend otherwise.
What does help is RTA section 4 (1): "Subject to subsection 12.1 (11) and section 194, a provision in a tenancy agreement that is inconsistent with this Act or the regulations is void." So if you paste a condo rule into the lease and that rule is inconsistent with the RTA, the lease term is void even though the rule itself continues to bind you as an owner. The opening words matter: section 4 (1) is not absolute, because section 194 (2) allows a settlement agreed before the Board to "contain provisions that contravene any provision under this Act."
Inside the condominium world there is a matching rule. Section 58 (2) sets the validity test in one sentence: "The rules shall be reasonable and consistent with this Act, the declaration and the by-laws." Section 58 (4) adds that where a rule is inconsistent with the Act, "the provisions of this Act shall prevail and the rule or proposed rule, as the case may be, shall be deemed to be amended accordingly."
That test matters because rules are cheaper to make than by-laws. A by-law needs an owner vote: section 56 (10) says it is not effective until owners of a majority of the units vote to confirm it and a copy is registered. A rule needs no vote. Under section 58 (7) a rule becomes effective the day after the thirtieth day following notice, unless owners requisition a meeting within that 30 days.
There is one brake, and it is worth knowing because it is the answer to a board that keeps trying. Section 58 (7) opens "Subject to subsection (8)", and subsection (8) provides that a rule with substantially the same purpose or effect as one the owners amended or repealed within the preceding two years is not effective until the owners approve it at a meeting duly called for that purpose. A board gets one free pass at a rule, not an unlimited series of them.
Section 83 (1) is short, specific and widely misremembered as a 30 day obligation. It is 10 days:
"The owner of a unit who leases the unit or renews a lease of the unit shall, within 10 days of entering into the lease or the renewal, as the case may be, (a) notify the corporation that the unit is leased; (b) provide the corporation with the lessee's name, the owner's address and a copy of the lease or renewal or a summary of it in the form prescribed by the Minister; and (c) provide the lessee with a copy of the declaration, by-laws and rules of the corporation."
Four separate obligations, and owners routinely do the first and skip the rest. Clause (b) requires your own address as well as the tenant's name, which is the corporation's route to you when something goes wrong. Clause (c) is the one that gets forgotten entirely, and it is the one that bites later: you cannot tell a tribunal your tenant was on notice of a rule if you never gave them the rules.
Clause (b) is disjunctive. You may hand over a copy of the lease, or a summary "in the form prescribed by the Minister". The Condominium Authority of Ontario publishes that form as the Summary of Lease or Renewal, in fillable and non-fillable versions, and its page says owners "can use this form to provide their condo corporation with required tenant lease information within 10 days of entering a lease or a lease renewal." The statute says "shall", so treat the softer wording as a description rather than an option.
The Condominium Act does not say how to count those 10 days. A third statute does. Legislation Act, 2006 section 89 (3) provides that a reference to a number of days between two events "excludes the day on which the first event happens and includes the day on which the second event happens", so you start counting the day after signing. Section 89 (1) then extends a limit that would expire on a holiday to the next day that is not one. Neither rule is in the Condominium Act, 1998, which is why owners who count carefully still count wrongly.
Section 83 (2) closes the loop: "If a lease of a unit is terminated and not renewed, the owner of the unit shall notify the corporation in writing within 10 days of the termination." That one is expressly in writing. Section 83 (3) requires the corporation to keep a record of what it receives.
There is a reason to comply beyond tidiness. Section 76 (1) (o) requires a status certificate to state "the number of units for which the corporation has received notice under section 83 that the unit was leased during the fiscal year preceding the date of the status certificate". Your section 83 notices feed a document every prospective buyer in the building reads.
Three people can, and the routes are not the same price.
Section 119 (2) of the Condominium Act, 1998 puts the duty on you: "An owner shall take all reasonable steps to ensure that an occupier of the owner's unit and all invitees, agents and employees of the owner or occupier comply with this Act, the declaration, the by-laws and the rules." Section 119 (3) then gives the corporation, any owner and any registered mortgagee "the right to require that a person who is required to comply with this Act, the declaration, the by-laws and the rules shall do so."
Read subsection (2) carefully. It says occupier, not tenant. Searched as whole words, "tenant" appears three times in the statute and "tenants" three more, and only four of the six refer to a renter, in section 1 (1) and section 4 (2), (3) and (4). The other two are "tenants in common". The landlord-facing machinery at sections 83, 87, 105, 119 and 134 says "lessee" and "occupier" throughout. Your tenant is bound by the governing documents because they are an occupier, not because the Act has anything to say about tenancies.
Now your own tools, and there are two of them.
The Tribunal route. Section 1.36 (2) provides that "an owner or a mortgagee of a unit may apply to the Tribunal for the resolution of a prescribed dispute with the corporation, another owner or an occupier or a mortgagee of a unit." Your tenant is an occupier. So for a prescribed dispute, which covers pets and animals, vehicles, parking and storage, and the nuisance family of noise, odour, light, vibration, smoke and vapour, you can go to the Condominium Authority Tribunal against your own tenant for $25.
The Board route. RTA section 64 (1) lets a landlord give notice where the tenant's conduct "substantially interferes with the reasonable enjoyment of the residential complex for all usual purposes by the landlord or another tenant or substantially interferes with another lawful right, privilege or interest of the landlord or another tenant."
The protected persons are the landlord or another tenant. A condominium corporation is neither, and neither is a neighbouring unit owner living in their own unit. But the residential complex is the whole building, so a neighbour who is themselves renting is "another tenant" and their complaint grounds a notice directly.
Where the person disturbed is an owner-occupier, you are running on the last limb, "another lawful right, privilege or interest of the landlord", because your own exposure under section 119 (2) is exactly that. Plead it that way, and say so on the form.
One route is closed to you that a small-building landlord would have. RTA section 65 (1) offers a shorter notice with no voiding right, but it is gated on "a landlord who resides in a building containing not more than three residential units". A condominium tower is not that building, so even an owner living two floors up cannot use it.
No, and the Condominium Act, 1998 is clear about it once you look for the provision rather than assume it.
The phrases "terminate the lease" and "terminate the tenancy" appear zero times in the Act. "Landlord and Tenant Board" appears zero times.
What does exist is section 134 (4), and it is a limit on a court rather than a power in the corporation: "The court shall not, under subsection (3), grant an order terminating a lease of a unit for residential purposes unless the court is satisfied that, (a) the lessee is in contravention of an order that has been made under subsection (3); or (b) the lessee has received a notice described in subsection 87 (1) and has not paid the amount required by that subsection."
So the only body that can terminate a residential lease under the Condominium Act, 1998 is the Superior Court of Justice, and only on one of two gateways: the tenant has already breached a compliance order, or the tenant has ignored a rent-diversion notice.
And section 134 is narrower than it looks. Subsection (2.4), in force since 2020-10-01, provides that "This section does not apply to any matter in dispute for which a person may apply for resolution under section 1.36 to the Condominium Authority Tribunal established under Part I.2, if the Tribunal has been established under that Part."
That disapplies the whole section. Where the Tribunal has jurisdiction, the corporation's compliance-order route is closed and so is the section 134 (5) charge-back that rides on it. For a pet, a parked car, an item in storage or a noise complaint, the corporation is not going to the Superior Court and is not adding its court costs to your common expenses. It is filing a $25 application, the same as you would.
One trap if you read the Act online. Section 134 also carries subsections (2.1), (2.2) and (2.3) in a not-yet-in-force Note, added by 2020, c. 14, Sched. 1, s. 19 (1), dealing with notice to an owner before an application to require an occupier to vacate permanently. They are not in force. Do not cite them.
Three mechanisms, and they interlock.
First, the charge. Section 134 (5): "If a corporation obtains an award of damages or costs in an order made against an owner or occupier of a unit, the damages or costs, together with any additional actual costs to the corporation in obtaining the order, shall be added to the common expenses for the unit and the corporation may specify a time for payment by the owner of the unit." Read the reach of that. An order against the occupier still lands on the unit, and the unit is yours.
Second, the lien. Section 85 (1) gives the corporation a lien where an owner defaults on common expenses, covering the unpaid amount "together with all interest owing and all reasonable legal costs and reasonable expenses incurred by the corporation in connection with the collection or attempted collection of the unpaid amount."
Section 85 (2) is the clock: "The lien expires three months after the default that gave rise to the lien occurred unless the corporation within that time registers a certificate of lien in a form prescribed by the Minister." Three months, expressed in months, not 90 days. Section 85 (4) gives you 10 days of written notice before registration, and section 85 (6) says the lien "may be enforced in the same manner as a mortgage."
The link between the charge and the lien is not inference, and it is worth setting out because owners assume it is. Section 1 (1) defines "common expenses" to include "all expenses specified as common expenses in this Act". Section 134 (5) specifies that the damages and costs "shall be added to the common expenses for the unit". Section 84 (1) obliges owners to contribute to the common expenses. Section 85 (1) gives the lien on default. Four provisions, one chain.
If a lien fight does come, it is a court fight. Section 1.36 (4) (a) keeps disputes with respect to section 85 or 86 out of the Tribunal altogether.
Third, your rent. Section 87 (1): "If an owner who has leased a unit defaults in the obligation to contribute to the common expenses payable for the owner's unit, the corporation may, by written notice to the lessee, require the lessee to pay to the corporation the lesser of the amount of the default and the amount of the rent due under the lease."
Section 87 (3) requires a copy of that notice to you, and section 87 (6) protects the tenant who complies: the payment counts as rent and does not put them in default. So a corporation that is owed money does not have to sue you. It can take the rent at source, up to the arrears. You will be told, but being told is not the same as being asked.
You do, by default, and no by-law is needed to make that happen.
Section 105 (1) makes the deductible portion of a loss a common expense generally. Section 105 (2) then moves it onto your unit: "If an owner, a lessee of an owner or a person residing in the owner's unit with the permission or knowledge of the owner through an act or omission causes damage to the owner's unit, the amount that is the lesser of the cost of repairing the damage and the deductible limit of the insurance policy obtained by the corporation shall be added to the common expenses payable for the owner's unit."
Three things in that sentence repay attention. It names "a lessee of an owner" expressly, so your tenant's act or omission triggers it. It also catches "a person residing in the owner's unit with the permission or knowledge of the owner", which reaches an unauthorised occupant but does not obviously reach a one-night visitor, who is not residing there. And it is confined to damage "to the owner's unit", so on its face section 105 (2) does not reach damage your tenant causes to the common elements or to the unit next door.
It is also a ceiling, and that cuts your way. The charge is "the lesser of the cost of repairing the damage and the deductible limit". A large loss is capped at the deductible. A small one is capped at the repair cost, so a $900 repair against a $25,000 deductible costs you $900 and not a dollar more.
That last limit is where section 105 (3) comes in, and it is worth reading the right way round: "The corporation may pass a by-law to extend the circumstances in subsection (2) under which an amount shall be added to the common expenses payable for an owner's unit if the damage to the unit was not caused by an act or omission of the corporation or its directors, officers, agents or employees."
Section 105 (3) is permissive and it extends. It is not a precondition. Subsection (2) operates on its own. So the question for an owner is not whether the corporation has a deductible by-law, but how far beyond subsection (2) that by-law reaches, because that is what decides whether a burst washing machine on the fourteenth floor stops at your unit or follows the water down.
Section 105 (4) confirms the amount "constitutes an insurable interest of the owner", and that is the practical answer rather than a consolation. Deductible coverage on your own landlord policy is what turns an uncapped-looking exposure into a premium line. Ask for three documents before you buy or renew: the standard unit by-law under clause 56 (1) (h), any by-law passed under section 105 (3), and the deductible limit in figures.
Frankly, neither the RTA nor its general regulation resolves this, and we are not going to give you a confident answer.
Here is what the text supports. The word "deductible" appears zero times in the RTA and zero times in O. Reg. 516/06. "Insurance" appears zero times in the RTA; the only related word in the statute is "insurer", once, in section 27 (1) paragraph 2, and it is about letting a potential insurer view the unit.
RTA section 134 (1) opens "Unless otherwise prescribed, no landlord shall, directly or indirectly, with respect to any rental unit," and clause (a) prohibits collecting "a fee, premium, commission, bonus, penalty, key deposit or other like amount of money whether or not the money is refundable." A deductible charge-back is not named, and whether it is an "other like amount" is a question the words do not answer. Nor is anything prescribed to permit it: the nine exempt payments in O. Reg. 516/06 section 17 are keys, NSF charges, settlements, mobile home site consideration, transfer charges and mobile home property taxes.
Cutting the other way, RTA section 62 (2) expressly contemplates requiring a tenant, within seven days, to repair damage they wilfully or negligently caused or to pay the reasonable costs of repairing or replacing it. Recovering damage costs from a tenant is plainly contemplated. Recovering them is not the same act as passing a third party's deductible through a lease term.
Our position, and it is a position rather than a rule of law: draft for the damage, not for the deductible. A claim under section 62 or a money claim at the Board rests on the tenant's own act and a repair cost you can prove. A clause saying "the tenant shall pay the corporation's deductible" is one we would expect to be argued about, and section 4 (1) voids a lease term inconsistent with the Act.
One point owners miss. O. Reg. 516/06 section 17 is headed "Exemptions from s. 134 (1) and (3) of the Act". It does not mention subsection 134 (2), which binds "No superintendent, property manager or other person who acts on behalf of a landlord", expressly "with or without the authority of the landlord". A manager who collects an unlawful charge is exposed personally, and your instruction to do it is neither a defence nor a requirement.
The Tribunal is where a condominium dispute goes now, and its jurisdiction is set by O. Reg. 179/17, which the Condominium Authority of Ontario describes on its dispute resolution page in these words: "Regulation 179/17 defines the scope of disputes that can be resolved by the Tribunal."
The CAO's application page lists what it takes: condominium records, compliance with settlement agreements, disputes about governing-document provisions "involving pets and animals, vehicles, parking and storage", disputes "about nuisances, annoyances, or disruptions or provisions in a condo corporation's governing documents regarding noise, odour, light, vibrations, smoke and vapour", and disputes about "indemnification or compensation relating to points 3, 4 and 5 above". Three features matter to a landlord.
Your tenant can be a respondent but never an applicant. Section 1.36 (1) lets a corporation apply "for the resolution of a prescribed dispute with one or more of its owners or one or more occupiers or mortgagees of a unit", so the corporation may name your tenant directly rather than coming through you. Section 1.36 (2) gives you the mirror right against an occupier. Neither subsection gives an occupier a way in as applicant, and the CAT Rules of Practice, which print "Effective: January 1, 2022", define an Applicant at Rule 3.1 (b) as "the Party who files an Application with the CAT. This could be the owner or mortgagee of a condominium unit, or a condominium corporation."
Where a case is brought against you about your tenant's conduct, Rule 17.2 requires the applicant to deliver the Notice of Case to the occupant "as an Intervenor if the Case relates to the acts or omissions of that Occupant", and Rule 17.5 gives intervenors "all of the rights and responsibilities of a Party". Your tenant ends up a full party in a proceeding they could not have started.
The fees are small and the loser pays them. The CAO publishes three-stage dispute resolution at a total cost of $200: $25 to file, $50 at Stage 2 for mediation, $125 at Stage 3 for adjudication, paid stage by stage by the applicant. Rule 48.1 then says: "If a Case is not resolved by Settlement Agreement or Consent Order and a Tribunal Member makes a final Decision, the unsuccessful Party will be required to pay the successful Party's CAT fees unless the Tribunal Member decides otherwise."
Read that narrowly. It is CAT fees only. Rule 48.2 says the Tribunal "generally will not order one Party to reimburse another Party for legal fees or disbursements", and Rule 49.1 that it "generally will not order one Party to pay another Party compensation for time spent related to the CAT proceeding." The Tribunal recovers your filing fee, not your afternoon.
There is a limitation period, and it is the clock the guidance leaves out. Section 1.36 (6) requires an application to be made within two years after the dispute arose, extendable by up to one year under section 1.36 (7). A rule breach you have tolerated for three years is a rule breach you may no longer be able to file on.
One caution on the CAO's own material. Its Condo Landlords' Guide, stamped "Date: April 11, 2024", lists a narrower jurisdiction than the live pages do, omitting records and settlement-agreement compliance, and hedges: "Note: This list of issues will change in the future as the CAT's jurisdiction expands." Use the guide for the landlord mechanics and the live pages for the jurisdiction. The list widens again on 2027-07-01 under O. Reg. 237/26.
Where the problem is not a prescribed condominium dispute, or where you want the tenancy to end, you are at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
The form is the N5, the notice to end a tenancy for interfering with others, damage or overcrowding, currently footed N5 (2026/09). The two-notice structure comes from the Act itself, which is better authority than the form. RTA section 64 (2) (a) requires a termination date "not earlier than the 20th day after the notice is given", and section 64 (3) voids the notice if the tenant stops the conduct within seven days.
A second notice is governed by section 68. Clause 68 (1) (b) requires the fresh conduct to occur "more than seven days but less than six months after the notice mentioned in clause (a) was given to the tenant", and section 68 (2) sets a termination date "not earlier than the 14th day after" the second notice, with no voiding provision at all.
That seven-day floor catches people. Conduct inside the first notice's correction window cannot found a non-voidable second notice, and you cannot re-date conduct. A defective first notice you can simply serve again; a second notice grounded on conduct from day three is the defect with no cure.
The N5 itself carries a warning worth quoting in full: "An N5 Notice cannot be both voidable and non-voidable at the same time, even for different reasons." If your tenant is both making noise and has damaged a corridor door, you cannot bundle a voidable and a non-voidable ground into one notice.
If the notice is not complied with, the application is the L2, the application to end a tenancy and evict a tenant or collect money. The fee is "$201 or $186 through the Tribunals Ontario Portal", and the forms page says four separate times: "Please note that LTB fees are non-refundable."
Non-refundable is not unrecoverable, and this is where the comparison between the two forums goes wrong. Rule 23.1 of the LTB Rules of Procedure provides: "If the applicant is successful, the LTB may order the respondent to pay the application fee to the applicant as costs." Rule 23.2 lets a member order representation and preparation fees against a party, capped at $100 per hour for a paid representative to a maximum of $700. Both sit on RTA section 204 (2): "The Board may order a party to an application to pay the costs of another party."
So the comparison is this. The Board will not refund your $201, but it may order it against your tenant if you win. The Tribunal charges $25 to start and shifts its fees to the loser as a default rather than a discretion. Neither forum pays you for your own time. The difference between them is the size of the cheque and how readily the shift happens, not whether recovery exists at all.
Two housekeeping points. The published N5 instruction sheet is dated "November 30, 2015". It still tells owners to "shade the box completely", still describes faxing the notice, and still prints the superseded L2 title, while the 2026/09 form lists its delivery methods as "In Person Mail Courier Email Service Ontario Center". Read the form, not the instructions.
And the N5, N6, N8, N12, N13, L1, L2, L9, L10 and T5 were all replaced on 2026-09-21. The LTB's Operational Update of that date says: "Previous versions of these forms will no longer be accepted as of November 30, 2026." That sentence is not on the forms page itself. The forms page carries a banner about the September changes and links the Operational Update, so the cut-off is one click away rather than hidden, but an owner who does not follow the link will not see it.
No, and the Condominium Management Services Act, 2015 is unusually direct about it.
Section 34 (1) provides: "No person shall provide condominium management services unless licensed as a condominium management provider or as a condominium manager." The Act defines "client" as "a condominium corporation to which a condominium management provider or a condominium manager provides condominium management services", and defines "condominium management services" as services "provided to or on behalf of a condominium corporation".
Both definitional limbs run to the corporation. The Act borrows the meaning of "owner" from the Condominium Act, 1998, and its single owner-facing provision is section 53, which bars a licensee from soliciting proxies for a meeting of owners on certain subjects. No duty at all is owed to a tenant.
The flip side is useful. Because managing an individual owner's rental unit falls outside the defined "condominium management services", it falls outside section 34 (1) altogether. The licensing questions that matter on your side of the building come from elsewhere, and if your manager is going to stand up for you at the Board that is a different regime again. We have written about whether a property manager can represent you at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
Two statutes, two clients. The condominium manager answers to the board. Somebody has to answer to you, and if you are not doing it yourself, it will not be them.
Take a two-bedroom stacked condominium in Orléans, leased on Friday 2026-04-10. The corporation has a rule against storing items on balconies and a by-law under section 105 (3) extending deductible charge-backs to the common elements. The deductible on its water policy is $25,000. The tenant stores a barbecue and three bicycles on the balcony, and separately the dishwasher line fails and water reaches two units below.
Count the clocks, and notice they are four different kinds of clock.
Two totals side by side, and they are closer than the folklore suggests. Enforcing the balcony rule against your own tenant costs $25 at the Tribunal, shifted to the loser by default under Rule 48.1, or $201 at the Board if you want the tenancy to end, recoverable at the Board's discretion under Rule 23.1. The corporation's out-of-pocket to charge you the deductible is a notice, because section 105 (2) is self-executing and needs no application at all.
That is the real asymmetry. It is not that you have no lever. It is that the cheap lever and the expensive one sit in different forums, and the deductible charge goes through neither.
Three questions decide it, and none is about collecting rent.
Will you read the corporation's mail? Rules take effect the day after the thirtieth day following notice unless owners requisition a meeting under section 58 (7). Budgets change common expenses. Standard unit by-laws change what your own policy has to cover. An owner who does not open the envelope finds out at the deductible stage.
Can you act inside 10 days, twice? Section 83 (1) on every lease and every renewal, and section 83 (2) in writing on every termination. Small obligations with a long tail, because a status certificate in your building counts them.
Do you know which forum a given complaint belongs in? This is the one that costs money. A pet, a parked car, a stored bicycle or a noise complaint is a $25 Tribunal application you are entitled to bring against your own tenant. A tenancy you actually want to end is a notice and a $201 application at the Board. Picking the wrong one is how a $25 problem becomes a $201 one.
KEILTY Realty Management runs rented condominium units across Eastern Ontario, including Ottawa and the surrounding communities, on a flat monthly rate per unit that does not rise as rent rises. We read the corporation's notices, we file the section 83 paperwork on every lease and renewal, and when a board complains about a tenant we work out which forum the complaint belongs in before anybody pays a filing fee. For how we handle a single rented home or unit, see our single-family rental management page.
How long do I have to tell the condo corporation I have rented my unit? Ten days from entering into the lease or the renewal, under section 83 (1) of the Condominium Act, 1998. You must give the corporation notice, the lessee's name, your own address, and either a copy of the lease or the Minister's prescribed Summary of Lease or Renewal, and you must give your tenant a copy of the declaration, by-laws and rules. The counting comes from Legislation Act, 2006 section 89 (3), which excludes the day of signing.
Can the condo corporation evict my tenant? No. The phrases "terminate the lease" and "terminate the tenancy" appear nowhere in the Condominium Act, 1998, and neither does the Landlord and Tenant Board. Section 134 (4) lets only the Superior Court of Justice terminate a residential lease, and only where the lessee has breached a compliance order or ignored a section 87 (1) rent-diversion notice.
Can I take my own tenant to the Condominium Authority Tribunal? Yes. Section 1.36 (2) lets an owner apply to the Tribunal for the resolution of a prescribed dispute with an occupier, and your tenant is an occupier. Filing costs $25, and under Rule 48.1 the unsuccessful party normally pays the successful party's CAT fees. Section 1.36 (6) gives you two years from when the dispute arose.
Who pays the corporation's insurance deductible if my tenant causes a flood? You do, by default. Section 105 (2) adds the lesser of the repair cost and the deductible limit to your unit's common expenses where an owner, a lessee of an owner, or a person residing in the unit with the owner's permission or knowledge causes damage to the owner's unit. No by-law is needed for that. A by-law under section 105 (3) extends it beyond your own unit.
Do I get my Landlord and Tenant Board filing fee back? Not from the Board, which says four times on its own forms page that its fees are non-refundable. But Rule 23.1 lets the Board order a successful applicant's application fee against the respondent as costs, and Rule 23.2 allows representation and preparation fees up to $100 per hour to a maximum of $700. Both are discretionary.
Thinking about renting out a condominium unit, or already holding one that has started generating letters from the board? Tell us about the property and A.J. Keilty will call you within 20 minutes in business hours.
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-09-24, 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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