How to end a tenancy in Ontario: which N-form, and when

Ending a tenancy in Ontario is a forms exercise before it is anything else. The Residential Tenancies Act sets out specific grounds, each ground has a specific notice, each notice has its own notice period, and several of them can be undone by the tenant doing something within a set window. Get the form or the dates wrong and the notice is defective, which usually means discovering, months later at a hearing, that you have to start again.

This is the map. It covers the landlord-served notices, the tenant's own notice, and the mutual agreement, with the notice period and the escalation path for each.

First: the term ending is not a ground

The single most common misconception. When a fixed-term lease reaches its end date in Ontario, the tenancy does not end. It continues automatically as a month-to-month tenancy on the same terms. You cannot evict a tenant because their year is up, and you cannot require them to sign a new lease. If you want them out, you need one of the grounds below.

This is worth internalising before you read the rest, because a large share of defective notices are landlords reaching for a form to accomplish something the Act simply does not allow.

Non-payment of rent: N4

The most-used notice by a wide margin. An N4 gives the tenant 14 days to pay the arrears in full (7 days on a weekly tenancy). It is voidable: if the tenant pays everything owing before you file, the notice is dead and the tenancy continues as if nothing happened.

• Notice period: 14 days (7 for a weekly tenancy).
• Voidable: yes, paying the full arrears voids it.
• Escalates to: an L1 application at the Landlord and Tenant Board.
• Watch: the arrears figure has to be right. An N4 that overstates what's owed is a defective notice.

Conduct: N5, N6, N7

Three notices for three different severities of tenant conduct. The important practical difference is that only the first is voidable.

N5 covers interfering with the reasonable enjoyment of others, damage to the unit or complex, or overcrowding. It runs 20 days from service, and the tenant has 7 days to correct the behaviour or repair the damage and void it. There's a sting in the tail: a second N5 served within six months of the first is not voidable, and runs at 14 days.

N6 covers an illegal act or an illegal business in the unit or complex: 10 days, and not voidable. (An N6 for a non-illegal business runs 20 days.) N7 covers serious problems: wilful damage, serious impairment of safety, or serious interference in a small building where the landlord lives. It runs 10 days and is not voidable.

• N5: 20 days, voidable within 7. Repeat within 6 months: 14 days, not voidable. Escalates to L2.
• N6: 10 days (20 for a non-illegal business), not voidable. Escalates to L2.
• N7: 10 days, not voidable. Escalates to L2.

Because N6 and N7 offer no cure path, the evidentiary bar at the hearing is correspondingly high. These are not notices to reach for because a tenant is difficult.

End of term: N8

An N8 runs 60 days and is the notice for a specific set of end-of-term grounds, persistent late payment of rent being the most commonly used. It is not a general-purpose 'I don't want to renew' notice, and it does not turn the expiry of a fixed term into a ground on its own. Escalates to an L2.

Landlord's or purchaser's own use: N12

Where the landlord, a purchaser, or a close family member requires the unit for their own residential use. 60 days' notice, and the termination date must fall on the last day of a rental period. You cannot end the tenancy mid-month.

Two mandatory conditions gate this one, and skipping either sinks the application:

• Compensation: one month's rent, or an offer of another acceptable rental unit, paid on or before the termination date.
• An affidavit from the person who intends to occupy the unit, sworn as required by the Act.

N12 is scrutinised heavily, and bad-faith N12s carry serious consequences. A former tenant can apply after the fact if the stated person never moved in. Escalates to an L2.

Demolition, repair, or conversion: N13

120 days' notice, and again the termination date must land on the last day of a rental period. What the tenant is owed depends on which of the three grounds you're using, and this trips people up constantly:

• Demolition or conversion to another use: compensation, tiered by the size of the building.
• Repair or renovation: no compensation, but the tenant has a right of first refusal to return to the unit at the old rent once the work is done, a right they must give you written notice to preserve.

This is the renoviction territory that several municipalities now regulate on top of the provincial rules. If you're doing significant work, check your municipal bylaw as well as the Act. Escalates to an L2.

The tenant's own notice: N9

The one form on this list a tenant serves on you. An N9 gives 60 days to the end of a rental period (28 days on a weekly or daily tenancy), and the earliest a tenant can end a fixed term this way is the last day of the term.

Worth knowing: an N9 is not self-executing. If the tenant serves one and then doesn't move out, you have 30 days from the termination date to apply to the Board on an L3. Miss that window and the N9 is spent, and the tenancy simply continues.

Mutual agreement: N11

The cleanest ending available. An N11 is an agreement, not a notice: both landlord and tenant sign it, there is no minimum notice period, and it is never served. Because it is consensual it cannot be imposed, and a tenant who signs one under pressure has grounds to challenge it later.

Same as an N9, if the tenant doesn't leave on the agreed date you have 30 days to apply on an L3.

Quick reference

• N4: non-payment of rent. 14 days (7 weekly). Voidable by payment. → L1
• N5: interference, damage, overcrowding. 20 days, 7-day cure. Repeat within 6 months: 14 days, no cure. → L2
• N6: illegal act or business. 10 days (20 for a non-illegal business). No cure. → L2
• N7: serious problems. 10 days. No cure. → L2
• N8: end of term, on specific grounds. 60 days. → L2
• N9: tenant's own notice. 60 days (28 weekly/daily). → L3 if they stay
• N11: mutual agreement. No notice period, both parties sign. → L3 if they stay
• N12: landlord/purchaser/family use. 60 days, last day of rental period, compensation + affidavit. → L2
• N13: demolish, repair, convert. 120 days, last day of rental period, compensation or right of return. → L2

Serving it is the other half

A correctly chosen form with a correct termination date still fails if it was served badly or if you cannot prove it was served at all. Service method changes the date the notice is deemed received, which changes every date downstream of it. That's the subject of its own guide, linked below.

This is a summary of a complicated area and it is not legal advice. Notice periods, grounds, and compensation rules do change. Before serving anything consequential (an N12, an N13, or any notice you expect to be contested), have a paralegal look at it.

• Lease management in Kera
• Serving a notice: methods, deemed receipt, and proof
• Your lease doesn't end when the term ends
• N4 and L1: the arrears process in detail