Got an N12? What Ontario Tenants Need to Know Before Moving Out

An N12 is a notice, not an eviction order. It is how a landlord says that they, a family member, a caregiver or a buyer plans to move in. You do not have to leave just because you got one. Section 39 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 lets a landlord take back the unit only where the tenant has moved out or a Landlord and Tenant Board order allows it. The Board's own form agrees: "You do not have to move out if you disagree with what the landlord has put in this notice." What decides the outcome is the date on the form, the money attached to it, and the deadlines. This is general information, not legal advice.

What has to be on the notice

The termination date must be at least 60 days after the notice is given (section 48(2) for the landlord's own use, section 49(3) for a purchaser) and it must fall on the last day of a rental period, or the end of a fixed term. The termination date is the day the notice says your tenancy ends. If you pay on the first, that date has to be the last day of a month. On a one-year lease it cannot come before the last day of that year.

Counting matters. The N12 instructions tell landlords not to count the day the notice is handed over. They must add five days for mail, or one business day for courier. Section 191(3) treats a mailed document as given on the fifth day after mailing. Here is the Board's own worked example. Handed to a month-to-month tenant on August 1, the earliest termination date is September 30; mailed that day, October 31. An N12 cannot be taped to your door.

Get the date wrong and the notice fails. Guideline 12 says a notice with an incorrect termination date "is defective", "cannot be amended after it has been given", and cannot support an order terminating a tenancy.

Who is allowed to send one

Section 48(5) limits the landlord's-own-use N12 to units owned at least in part by a person, where the landlord is a person. A corporation cannot give one. The person moving in must be the landlord, their spouse, a child or parent of either, or a caregiver for one of them. For a caregiver, section 48(1)(d) requires the person getting the care to be someone who "resides or will reside in the building" holding the unit. Section 48(1) also requires an intention to live there for at least one year. Section 49, the purchaser version, applies only where the complex holds no more than three residential units, or where a condominium unit is being sold. It also needs a signed agreement of purchase and sale. Note the gap. The one-year requirement sits in section 48, not 49, and Form N12 matches that: Reason 1 says "occupy it for at least one year", Reason 2 does not.

Tenancies that cannot be given an N12 at all

If you have rented a GTA condo for years, this is the strongest point here, and the Board's N12 instructions list it. Section 51(1): a landlord "may not give a notice under section 48 or 49" to anyone who was already a tenant when the complex became subject to a registered condominium declaration "on or after June 17, 1998". Section 51(2): the same for a proposed condominium unit, where you were the tenant when the purchase agreement was signed. Section 56: the same where the unit became sellable on its own through a Planning Act consent or subdivision. The instructions add equity co-ops, unless the building has four or fewer units, or the landlord or a member of their immediate family used to live there.

But read section 51(3) before you rely on 51(1) or (2). Neither applies where no unit was rented before July 10, 1986 and the complex was registered "before the day that is two years after the day on which the first rental unit … was first rented". That is the ordinary new-condo pattern: rented on interim occupancy, then registered inside two years. Section 51(4) also leaves out a tenant who took the unit by assignment. Where one of these bars does apply, the notice cannot be given at all.

The money: one month's rent, by the termination date

Section 48.1 says a landlord "shall compensate a tenant in an amount equal to one month's rent or offer the tenant another rental unit acceptable to the tenant". Section 49.1 does the same for a purchaser's N12, and the duty stays with the landlord who served the notice, not with the buyer. Section 55.1 sets the deadline. The money is due "no later than on the termination date specified in the notice". Not after you leave, and not on closing day.

The teeth are in section 83(4): the Board "shall not issue an eviction order … for the purposes of residential occupation … until the landlord has complied with section 48.1, 49.1, 52, 54 or 55".

If the money never came, section 135(1.1) treats the landlord as having kept it against the Act, and Reason 6 on the T1 instructions is this exact situation. You do not have to have moved out. The T1 is open to "either a current or former tenant", as long as the compensation fell due within the last 12 months.

If you stay past the termination date

Nothing automatic happens. The landlord must file an L2 and win a hearing. The Board's hearing-process page puts non-arrears applications at roughly five to seven months from filing to hearing, a figure it attaches no date to. Section 71 lets them apply as soon as they have served the notice. But section 69(2) bars an application more than 30 days after the termination date, and a late one is thrown out.

Keep paying rent. Disputing an N12 puts nothing on hold. Rent arrears are the most common way a tenant fighting one loses the unit anyway, on a separate N4 and L1 track. That track speeds up on September 21, 2026, when section 59(1) is replaced. A non-payment notice can then take effect on the 7th day after it is given rather than the 14th. Daily and weekly tenancies are the exception, because they were already at the 7th.

The affidavit. An affidavit is a written statement sworn to be true. Section 72(1)(a) bars an eviction order on a section 48 notice unless the landlord files one sworn by the person who personally requires the rental unit, promising good faith and personal use for at least one year. Section 72(1)(b) asks the same for a purchaser's notice, without the one-year clause. Section 71.1 requires it with the application, and the Board will not accept the application without it. A signed, dated declaration is accepted instead.

The disclosure. Since September 1, 2021, an L2 built on an N12 or N13 must list every such notice the landlord gave any tenant in the previous two years. That includes properties they no longer own. Section 72(3) lets the Board weigh that history.

The hearing. The landlord must prove good faith on a balance of probabilities, which means more likely than not. Even then, section 83(2) makes the Board consider refusing the eviction or delaying it. Section 83(3) requires a refusal where the application is payback for enforcing your rights, for complaining to a government authority about health or safety, or for joining a tenants' association. The same goes where the landlord is in serious breach of their own obligations. An eviction order cannot take effect before the notice's termination date. But the power to delay one narrows on September 21, 2026, when section 83(1)(b) becomes "subject to any prescribed limitations or conditions". O. Reg. 516/06 s. 8.4, added by O. Reg. 241/26 the same day, sets those limits. On an eviction built on a section 48, 49 or 50 notice, the Board may delay it "only if the landlord consents", or if satisfied a delay "would not be unfair to the landlord or other tenants of the residential complex".

Enforcement. Only the Court Enforcement Office (the Sheriff) can remove you. Changing the locks while you live there is an illegal lockout. The answer is a T2, though section 31(3) lets the Board order you back in only "if the Board is satisfied that the rental unit is vacant".

Bad faith, and what the Board can order

If you move out and nobody moves in, section 57 is the route back. A former tenant may apply on Form T5 where three things hold: the notice was given in bad faith, the tenant left because of it or an order based on it, and nobody named in section 48 or 49 moved in within a reasonable time. The deadline is one year from the day you moved out, and you cannot file while you still live there.

The presumption that shifts the burden covers only a landlord's-own-use notice, and it can be rebutted. A presumption means the Board starts by assuming bad faith, and the landlord has to show otherwise. Section 57(5) opens "For the purposes of an application under clause (1) (a)", the section 48 branch, and the T5 instructions repeat it: "If the landlord gave you the notice of termination for Reason 1". It presumes bad faith "unless the contrary is proven on a balance of probabilities". So a relisting moves the burden onto the landlord rather than deciding the case. On a purchaser's N12 under section 49, the ordinary GTA condo case, there is no presumption at all. Section 57(6) runs the window from "the day the landlord gives the notice of termination under section 48" to one year after you move out.

Section 57(3) sets out what the Board can order. That covers the extra rent you now pay for a one-year period after leaving, general compensation of up to 12 months of your last rent whether or not you spent anything, moving and storage costs, a rent abatement, an administrative fine, and any other order the Board thinks fit. That includes, says Guideline 12, moving you back in if the unit has not been re-rented. A new section 57(6.1) arrives on September 21, 2026. It presumes bad faith where nobody moved in within a "prescribed period of time", again on section 48 only. No period has been prescribed: O. Reg. 241/26 adds sections 8.1 to 8.4, 17.1 and 17.2 to O. Reg. 516/06, and none of them is that one.

The T1 and T5 instructions both let you ask for a fee waiver "if you meet the financial eligibility requirements set out by the LTB". The fees page adds that Board fees are non-refundable.

The fine's ceiling is written three ways. The T5 instructions cap it at "$50,000 or the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court … whichever is greater". Section 57(3) says "the greater of $10,000 and the monetary jurisdiction". Guideline 12 says "not exceeding the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court", with no floor. All three land on the same number today only because Ontario raised that court's limit to $50,000 on October 1, 2025. (Guideline 16, the guideline on administrative fines, states no amount at all. It says the fine should suit the breach.) The T5 instructions separately cap your whole claim at $50,000.

The $100,000 and $500,000 maximums are a different thing. They are fines on conviction for an offence, such as taking back a unit improperly by giving a notice in bad faith (section 233(k)). And the Board confirmed on June 30, 2026 that they "do not apply to administrative fines, costs, or compensation" it orders.

Deadlines worth writing down

Two wrinkles. The Board's page gives both 30 days and 15 days for a review request. Its June 30, 2026 update says 15 days from July 1, 2026, so work to 15. Missing it does not close the door, because a late filing "must also ask for an extension of time … by filling out a Request to Extend Deadline". The appeal clock also has two start points. Section 210(1) runs 30 days "after being given the order", while the Board's page runs from "the date the review order was issued". If you never asked for a review, count from the order. Filing an appeal puts the order on hold, but only "unless the Divisional Court or the LTB lifts (or removes) the stay".

Get help before the hearing, not after. The Board's Getting legal help page lists Legal Aid Ontario, the community legal clinics it funds and the Law Society's referral service. The Board's line is 416-645-8080 in Toronto, 1-888-332-3234 elsewhere.