Ontario's New Rental Rules: What Etobicoke and Liberty Village Landlords Need to Know

Market Insight Dave Dubbin July 15, 2026

If you own a rental property in Ontario, the rules changed on July 1. The latest round of amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act is now in force, and the headline items for landlords are these: tenants can now install their own air conditioning, repayment agreements must be on an official Landlord and Tenant Board form, the window to request a review of an LTB order has been cut in half, and maximum fines have doubled. Another batch of changes lands in September.

None of this is a reason to panic. It is a reason to update your paperwork and your process, especially if you self manage a condo in Mimico, Humber Bay Shores or Liberty Village.

Own a rental, or thinking about becoming a landlord? Our Landlord's Guide is a free download that covers the fundamentals.

Tenants can now install air conditioning

The change getting the most attention. Where a landlord does not provide air conditioning, tenants now have the right to install a window or portable unit. There are conditions. The installation has to be safe and secure, and the tenant must give written notice before installing.

The part that matters for condo landlords: if electricity is included in the rent, you can apply a seasonal charge to cover the added cost, but it cannot exceed the actual or reasonably estimated electricity cost, and it comes off the rent when the unit is not in use. If your lease includes utilities, this is worth pricing out now rather than in the middle of the next heat wave. And if your unit is in a condo building, remember the condo corporation's own rules about window units still apply.

Payment agreements now need the official form

When a tenant falls behind and you work out a repayment plan, that agreement now has to be completed on a form approved by the Landlord and Tenant Board. Handshake deals and homemade payment schedules will not hold up the way they used to. The details are in the Tribunals Ontario operational update.

A lot of our landlord clients own one bedroom condos in the west end. These three posts cover what those units are doing right now:

Less time to ask for a review, and bigger fines

Two quieter changes with real teeth. First, if you want the LTB to review one of its own orders, you now have 15 days to file instead of 30. If you get an order you disagree with, the clock is short, so act quickly and get advice early.

Second, maximum fines for offences under the Residential Tenancies Act have doubled. For individuals the ceiling moved from $50,000 to $100,000, and for corporations from $250,000 to $500,000. The rules around things like bad faith evictions were already strict. The price of getting them wrong just went up.

More changes are coming in September

This was not the last of it. A further set of amendments, including changes to the process around non payment of rent notices, is scheduled to take effect on September 21, 2026. We will cover those as the date gets closer. For now, the practical to do list is short: update your repayment agreement process to use the LTB form, decide how you will handle air conditioning requests and seasonal charges, and diarize the 15 day review window anywhere it might matter.

What this means for west end landlords

Most of the landlords we work with own one or two units, often a condo they bought years ago in Liberty Village or along the Etobicoke waterfront. For them, these changes are manageable but not optional. Good records and clean paperwork have always separated the landlords who do well at the LTB from the ones who do not, and these amendments push everything further in that direction.

This post is general information, not legal advice. For a specific situation, talk to a lawyer or paralegal who works in residential tenancy law.

Thinking about whether your rental still makes sense to hold, or wondering what it would fetch today? Reach out for a no pressure conversation, or request a valuation.

Dave Dubbin & Associates
Etobicoke Real Estate Experts
Real Estate Broker for Etobicoke and Toronto