How do you increase your tenants’ rent in Ontario?

Ontario has many rules governing the relationship between Landlord and Tenant, including how to evict a tenant in Ontario. Of course, this also implies rules around increasing the rent. In order for a Landlord to increase the rent, they must serve their tenant with an N1 Form. However, before doing so, it is important to make sure you are in compliance with just a few things.

1. You cannot increase your tenant’s rent while a lease term is still in place. If your tenant is month to month, you are free to increase the rent.
2. The desired increase cannot exceed government provisioned limits for rent control, which changes yearly so be sure to check with the provisioned increase percentage for the year.

• Exception: Any rental units built after November 15 2018 are not subject to rent control which means if your tenant is not on a lease term, you can increase your rent however much you please.

With that understanding, let’s talk about the N1 Form.

The N1 form is a standardized document in Ontario served to a tenant by a Landlord to notify of a rent increase. You must complete this form and serve it to your tenant no less than 90 days (3 months) prior to the rent increase date. If you want some flexibility, we recommend giving a little more time just to avoid any issues.

How do you complete the form?

All N-Forms are arranged in more or less the same manner.

Name + Address

You must fill out your tenants name, landlord name and rental address at the top. Also, be sure to include ALL tenant names as indicated and matching on your lease agreement. Be sure to also include the rental address to match.

New rent

Below that you will have a “new rent” section where you will indicate the new rent amount and starting date.

The starting MUST BE 90 days in advance of when you serve this document.

It is important to calculate your rent according to the rent increase guideline issued by the Ontario government for that year. For example, the 2024 rent increase guideline allows for a 2.5% increase. If the rent is $2,000.00, this will allow for a $50.00 increase, meaning you will indicate a new rent of $2,050.00.

Assuming your lease with the tenant is a monthly basis, you will checkmark the “monthly” option.

Rent Explanation

You will need to show that you did the right calculations, so you need to indicate the difference in this section to show that your math is correct.

Again… indicate that this is on a monthly basis.

Below you will need to shade the box indicating what you are complying with. In most cases, you will be shading the first box indicating that you are complying with and/or do not need approval for the the increase because everything is in line. In the rare case you are applying for an above increase approval, you will be shading the “above rent increase guideline” section.

Signatures

This part may seem straightforward, but we see people mess this up all the time.

The representative section may only be completed by a paralegal and should not be touched otherwise.

If you are an individual Landlord, your name in the first section can be the same as in the signing section. However, if you are a corporate landlord, the first named section will include the corporations name and the signatures area must be completed by a named person meaning an individual. Some people will sign as a corporation, but a corporation cannot sign a document. An employee can definitely do so though, so if “Stephanie Lee” works for “ABC Corp,” she will include her name at the bottom, and ABC Corp printed on the top section.

If you have followed these instructions correctly, you will have no problems at all.

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