Ontario Tenants Rights

It's time to replace the batteries in your smoke detector, if they are battery powered. And of course it's time to turn your clocks forward 1 hour for daylight savings time, at 1 a.m., Sunday, March 14, 2010, or before going to bed, the night before (that is on Saturday night).

Are you on government benefits and so haven't filed an Income Tax return because you felt you had no taxable income? If so, you may be owed money.

There are rebate programs which give money back, such as the GST (Federal, Goods and Services Tax) rebate and the Ontario Tax credits. The Ontario Credits (form ON479,) includes a PST (Provincial Sales Tax) rebate, plus a Property Tax Credit which also applies to tenants as property tax is included in our rents. (There are similar programs to the Ontario one, in B.C., Manitoba, the Northwest Territories and Nunavut using either forms 479 or Form 428, whichever applies.) And there is the Canada Child Tax Benefit which includes a Child Disability Benefit supplement.

You can check out the Canada Revenue Agency's Benefits page, for all these rebates and credits.

The Certified General Accountants of Ontario, run many free income tax clinics for the working poor, and the poor or those on fixed incomes such as those on pensions, welfare and disability. To find out locations and times click on Ontario Free Tax Preparation Clinics.

You may also be able to claim credits owed to you for previous years, but you will have to consult with one of these tax clinics in advance (so they can get the previous years' tax forms) or other tax expert.

For the many people asking what is the law on minimum apartment temperature, this is regulated by your city or town, and the list covering 95% of apartments in Ontario municipalities can be found at Minimum Apartment Temperature by-laws.

This is up 1.8% in 2009 and up from 1.4% for 2008. Here is a list of past annual guideline rent increases.

Save and print out this Tenant Poster in Microsoft Word format. If you are happy with the work of this web site it would be greatly appreciated if you were to put up one or more of these half-page posters, in your laundry room, community centre, grocery store or other bulletin board, to inform other tenants of this free web site. And yes, the bottom of the page needs a few cuts to separate the tags with the address of this web site. Thank you.

Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation, an arm of the our federal government, twice yearly reports on rents and vacancy rates throughout Canada. These figures provided by landlords are used by all levels of government to help set housing policy. They are also widely reported by the media and influence the public's impression of rental housing costs.

Read my press release: CMHC Rental Market Survey on why the rent statistics for Ontario are inherently inaccurate, and why comparing one year to the next is like comparing apples to oranges. Canada Mortgage and Housing figures in recent year under-report real rental costs and therefore under-report the rate of rent increases.

Tenants Receive Notices of 30% Rent Increases, Northernlife (Sudbury,) January 11, 2008. Yes, under the Ontario Liberal Government's self-proclaimed "real rent controls" any rental units or buildings first occupied on or after November 1, 1991 are completely exempt from rent controls under the Residential Tenancies Act. See: what about Rent Controls.

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