Rent control in Ontario

Rent Control in Ontario refers to a system of rent regulation in Ontario, Canada which limits the amount by which the rent paid by tenants for rental accommodation can increase.

Rent regulation was first introduced in Ontario under the National Housing Act 1944. After lobbying by business it was repealed in under a decade.

The modern history of rent controls began in July 1975 when the Residential Premises Rent Review Act 1975 was enacted after the demand for rent controls became a major issue in the period leading to the 1975 provincial election. In 1979, the Residential Tenancies Act was enacted.

In 1985, the new Liberal government tightened rent controls with the Residential Rent Regulation Act and in 1992 the New Democratic Party government of Bob Rae passed the Rent Control Act 1992.

The Tenant Protection Act 1997 was enacted by the Progressive Conservative government of Mike Harris and proclaimed in June 1998. The Act retained selected rights and obligations contained in Part IV of the previous Landlord and Tenant Act. (Parts I, II, and III were retitled the Commercial Tenancies Act.) The Tenant Protection Act both repealed the Rent Control Act and removed the dispute resolution process of the Landlord Tenant Act, including evictions and rent increases, from the Ontario court system and assigned jurisdiction to a newly created quasi-judicial body, the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal.

Under the TPA landlord applications for eviction were automatically granted without a hearing unless the tenant filed a notice of dispute within five days. This provision, had been the subject of a complaint to the Ontario Ombudsman and was removed from the new Act.

The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 is the current law in Ontario that governs landlord and tenant relations in residential rental accommodations. The Act received royal assent on June 22, 2006 and was proclaimed into law on January 31, 2007. The Act repealed and replaced the Tenant Protection Act, 1997 and created the Landlord and Tenant Board as a replacement for the Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal.

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