Repairs and Maintenance: Landlord and Tenant Responsibilities in Ontario

Every residential tenancy in Ontario involves two sides of the same basic question: who keeps the unit in good condition, and who pays when something goes wrong. The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 answers this with a fairly clear division of labour. Landlords carry the ongoing duty to maintain the rental unit and the building it sits in; tenants carry a more limited duty to keep their own space reasonably clean and to avoid causing damage beyond what normal, everyday living naturally produces.

This division matters because it doesn’t depend on what any individual lease happens to say. A landlord’s maintenance obligations generally exist as a matter of law, on top of whatever the written lease provides, which is one of the recurring themes across residential tenancies covered throughout our leases hub.

A landlord is generally required to maintain the rental unit and the residential complex in a good state of repair, and to comply with all applicable health, safety, housing, and maintenance standards, whether those come from provincial law, municipal property standards bylaws, or fire and building codes. This obligation generally applies regardless of what the lease says — a clause stating the unit is rented “as-is,” or that the tenant accepts responsibility for existing problems, generally doesn’t override the landlord’s underlying statutory duty.

In practice, this duty covers things like functioning heating and plumbing systems, structural soundness, safe electrical systems, working smoke and carbon monoxide alarms, freedom from pest infestations, and compliance with locally applicable property standards. The duty is ongoing throughout the tenancy — it isn’t satisfied just because the unit met standards on move-in day if conditions later deteriorate.

This obligation also generally extends beyond the four walls of the individual unit to common areas in a multi-unit building — hallways, stairwells, laundry rooms, elevators, and shared entrances. A landlord’s maintenance duty doesn’t stop at a tenant’s own door, which is one reason a problem like a broken exterior door lock or a malfunctioning elevator is still generally the landlord’s responsibility to address, even though no individual unit is directly affected.

Tenants carry a narrower, but still real, set of obligations. A tenant is generally expected to keep the unit reasonably clean, up to the standard that an ordinarily reasonable person would maintain, and is generally responsible for repairing — or paying for the repair of — any undue damage to the unit caused by themselves, members of their household, or their guests.

The key word is “undue.” Ordinary wear and tear — carpet that thins after years of foot traffic, paint that fades, caulking that eventually dries out — is a normal consequence of a unit being lived in, and is generally treated as part of the landlord’s ongoing maintenance responsibility rather than something the tenant must pay for. Damage that goes beyond that baseline, such as a broken window, a burn mark in flooring, or a hole punched in drywall, generally falls to the tenant to address.

There’s no single mandatory format for asking a landlord to fix something, but a written request — by email, text, or a dated letter — generally creates a far clearer record than a phone call or a conversation in passing. A good repair request typically describes the problem specifically, notes when it was first noticed, and, where relevant, explains how it affects use of the unit.

It’s also generally useful to keep a copy of whatever response the landlord gives, including any timeline they commit to for making the repair. If a landlord needs to enter the unit to assess or carry out the repair, proper written notice of entry is generally required except in a genuine emergency, and that notice generally needs to specify a reasonable time window.

When a landlord doesn’t address a legitimate maintenance problem within a reasonable time, the generally recognized path forward is an application to the Landlord and Tenant Board, rather than self-help measures such as withholding rent or arranging repairs and deducting the cost unilaterally. Withholding rent in particular carries real risk, since non-payment of rent is itself a ground for a landlord to pursue an eviction notice, independent of the underlying maintenance dispute.

An LTB application concerning maintenance can seek a range of remedies depending on the facts, including an order requiring the landlord to complete specific repairs by a set date, and a rent abatement — a reduction or partial refund of rent — reflecting the period during which the unit fell below required standards. The Board generally weighs how serious the problem was, how long it went unaddressed, and whether the tenant gave the landlord a fair opportunity to fix it before applying.

If a landlord believes a tenant has caused damage beyond normal wear and tear, the landlord generally has options, including raising the issue directly with the tenant, applying to the LTB for compensation, or pursuing a claim in Small Claims Court for amounts beyond what the Board can award, depending on the circumstances. A landlord generally can’t simply deduct repair costs from a rent deposit, since residential rent deposits are generally limited in how they can be applied.

Disputes about tenant-caused damage often come down to evidence: what condition the unit was in at move-in, what changed during the tenancy, and whether the damage reasonably falls within “normal wear and tear” or beyond it. This is one of the more fact-dependent areas of residential tenancy law, and outcomes tend to turn heavily on documentation.

It’s also worth noting that a tenant’s duty not to cause undue damage is generally distinct from a landlord’s own maintenance duty — the two obligations don’t cancel each other out. A landlord who hasn’t kept up with general maintenance can’t generally use an unrelated instance of tenant-caused damage as a reason to ignore their own repair obligations elsewhere in the unit, and a tenant who has a legitimate maintenance complaint doesn’t get a free pass to cause damage of their own in response.

Whether the dispute is about a landlord’s failure to repair or a tenant’s alleged damage, records generally make the biggest difference in how a disagreement gets resolved. Dated photos at move-in and move-out, copies of repair requests and responses, and notes about when problems started and how they affected daily use of the unit are all useful if a matter ends up before the LTB.

For a broader look at what to check before signing a lease in the first place, including how maintenance responsibilities are typically described, see our lease review checklist, and for the fundamentals of how residential leases work generally, see our guide to lease agreements in Ontario. This article explains how repair and maintenance obligations generally work; it’s general information rather than legal advice for any specific repair dispute, and our tools and contact pages can help point toward further resources.