Tenancy will usually transfer to spouse upon death of sole tenant

A: On the facts you have stated, the short answer is yes. Usually, in Ontario when a residential tenant who is a sole tenant dies, the tenancy ends 30 days later. The tenant’s estate is liable for the rent to the end of that 30-day period.

The landlord can dispose immediately of any unsafe or unhygienic property of a sole tenant who has died. The landlord needs to preserve any other property of such a tenant that is in the rental unit or the residential complex.

Subject to any other agreement with the landlord, the tenant’s executor or administrator has the 30-day period to remove the tenant’s belongings from the rental unit. If there is no executor or administrator, then a member of the tenant’s family is allowed to remove the belongings.

It is a sound practice for the landlord to ask to see the tenant’s legal Will to check the name of the executor, and also to check the ID of any applicable person who comes to the unit to remove belongings. In all cases, the tenant’s Will or the laws of inheritance would determine who is entitled to the belongings, both at the rental unit and away from the rental unit, but that is not for the landlord to sort out.

Concerning termination, a special rule applies when spouse A’s principal residence is a rental unit rented solely by their spouse (B), who is the sole tenant. That is the situation you have described. In that situation, when spouse B dies, spouse A becomes the tenant of the unit unless spouse A moves out within 30 days of the death of spouse B.

The special rule for spouses is easy to overlook because it does not appear in the Residential Tenancies Act itself, but rather in Section 3 of Ontario Regulation 516/06, which defines the word tenant as including a spouse under the conditions in the previous paragraph.

VUT REMINDER TO LANDLORDS AND HOMEOWNERS

The City of Ottawa’s Vacant Unit Tax applies on a negative billing basis, so that if an owner does not act, the city imposes the tax. The owners of all residential properties of six or fewer units, including condos and owner-occupied homes, need to file a declaration reporting the use of the property or the occupancy status of the property in 2023 by March 21, 2024. Otherwise, at the least, a late filing fee of $250 will apply.

For rental property, the declaration must be made for each residential unit. The declaration can be made by a property manager who has access to the code on the interim tax bill for the property.