Starting Monday, September 21, 2026, Ontario is shortening the timeline landlords must give tenants to catch up on missed rent — and tightening what tenants can raise at a hearing before that rent is paid. If you own a rental property in Ottawa, or you're a tenant trying to make sense of a notice you just received, here's what's actually changing and what it means for you.

The changes come out of Bill 60, passed last year, and Bill 97, which received Royal Assent in April 2026. Some provisions already took effect in July; the rest — including the shorter N4 timeline — land September 21.

Faster N4 Notices for Missed Rent

An N4 is the notice a landlord serves when rent hasn't been paid. Until now, tenants had 14 days from the notice to pay what's owed and avoid an eviction application. Under the new rules, that window shrinks to 7 days. For landlords, that means a faster path to filing with the Landlord and Tenant Board if rent still isn't paid. For tenants, it means much less runway to catch up before the eviction process formally starts.

A New Definition of "Persistent" Late Payment

The changes also formally define persistent late payment: three or more instances within six months where rent wasn't paid within 7 days of its due date. That gives landlords a clearer, documented basis for pursuing an eviction application specifically on persistent non-payment grounds, rather than relying on a pattern that was harder to define under the old rules.

Rent Must Be (Mostly) Paid Before Other Issues Get Heard

This is the change generating the most pushback. At an LTB hearing, a tenant now has to pay 50% of the overdue rent before they can raise other issues — maintenance problems, illegal entry, or harassment, for example — as part of that same hearing. Tenant-side lawyers argue this makes it harder to hold a landlord accountable for a legitimate complaint if the tenant is also behind on rent, even partially.

N12 Notices Remain at 120 Days, No Compensation Required

Landlords can still issue an N12 to move themselves or a family member into a unit. The notice period stays at 120 days, and landlords are not required to compensate the tenant for the move-out. This piece of the framework isn't new, but it's worth restating alongside everything else changing this month.

Landlord groups have long argued that Ontario's Landlord and Tenant Board process is too slow to be a meaningful remedy when rent goes unpaid — a standard L1 application currently takes 3 to 5 months to resolve, and persistent non-payment cases can take 5 to 8 months. Tenant advocates counter that shortening the payment window and limiting what can be raised at a hearing tips the balance further in a market where the average Ontario rent already sits around $2,248 a month for an apartment or condo, and $2,457 for a two-bedroom unit.

If you're a landlord, the shorter N4 window means less time lost before you can move to file with the LTB — but the Board's own processing times haven't changed, so a faster notice period doesn't mean a faster resolution overall. It's still worth documenting payment history carefully from the first missed payment, since the new persistent non-payment definition rewards a clear, dated paper trail.

If you're a tenant, or you're helping a client who's a tenant, the practical takeaway is urgency: a 7-day window to pay or arrange a plan is much tighter than 14, so a missed payment needs to be addressed immediately rather than after a pay period or two.