Vive la différence: Landlord-tenant rules vary from province to province

QUESTION:

I read your column every week, and keep many of them. However, I am now going to rent an apartment in Gatineau. Are the rules the same in Quebec as in Ontario? At the same time my son is going off to university in Guelph, where he will be living in residence, or possibly in a rooming house. Are the rules there the same as the rules you explain in the column?

ANSWER:

Landlord and tenant law falls under provincial jurisdiction. The rules in Quebec are not all the same as the rules in Ontario. In fact, in Quebec the legal system is based on the “Napoleonic Code” as modified and updated in Quebec, whereas in the nine English speaking provinces the legal system is based on the “common law” of England as made by judges over the centuries.

Then each province has enacted different landlord-tenant rules in its own Landlord and Tenant Act, or Residential Tenancies Act. Even among the English speaking provinces there are important differences. For example, the restrictions on rent increases vary, as do the rules about tenancy renewals, reasons for eviction and the eviction process.

As to Guelph, the provincial law is the same as it is in Ottawa, since Guelph is also in Ontario. There are differences concerning such matters as garbage rules or other bylaws since those are decided by each municipality.

The law can also be different according to what type of living accommodation a person occupies. Most of the questions answered in this column are from tenants who rent ordinary apartments (or houses) from for-profit landlords, and the answers apply to most ordinary apartments.

However, many people live in some special arrangement where some or many of the rules are different. Living in a university or college residence is a good example. Invariably in those residences the major decisions are made after consultation with an association of the students in the residence. When that is the case, the ordinary residence rooms or suites are not subject to the Ontario Residential Tenancies Act (RTA).

That means the agreement can set out rules different from what the RTA provides. For example, a residence agreement can prohibit pets, or have a fixed end date (the end of the term or school year) when the student has to vacate without either party giving a notice of termination. There is usually a process for considering the early and quick expulsion of the student if he or she makes too much noise.

You mention your son might live in a rooming house instead of residence. For the RTA, there are two categories of rooming houses. The RTA does not apply if the roomer is required to share bathroom or kitchen with the owner, the owner’s spouse, or the child or parent of either of them, if the owner, spouse, child or parent lives in the building.

However, in a “commercial rooming house” where the owner and their family is not resident, the RTA does apply. That means most of the same rules apply to roomers as to tenants in selfcontained apartments.

Although it does not apply to your son, some of the rules are different between “market rent housing” and social housing. For example, in Ottawa Community Housing most tenants do not have the right to sublet or assign their tenancies. Non-profit housing is different again because many of the residents are member of the co-operatives, and subject to different rules than ordinary tenants.

Unless the column is addressing a special type of housing, readers can apply the column to ordinary rental housing in Ontario, but not elsewhere.