Rental Housing: Notices for Eviction or Repossession

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Many tenants have already received notices for eviction or repossession or may soon receive one. It’s important to understand the strict conditions such requests must meet in order to be legal.

First of all, your landlord must send you a notice with all the legally-required information by a certain deadline. For a 12-month lease, this is six months before the lease renewal date. So, if your lease comes up for renewal on June 30, 2023, your landlord must send you the notice before the end of December.

Most importantly, if you have respected all the terms of your lease, your landlord can only oblige you to leave your apartment in one of the two situations discussed below. Simply selling the building does not give the new (or old) landlord the right to make you leave your apartment!

Housing themselves or a family member

Your landlord can repossess your apartment to:

  • live their themselves
  • have their children or parents live there
  • have any of the following people live there, if the landlord is that person’s main source of support: any other relative, family member by marriage, or an ex-spouse (married or civil union)

Carrying out certain major projects

Eviction is a process that allows a landlord to take back an apartment to carry out any of the following major projects:

  • subdivide it into two or more smaller apartments
  • demolish it, either completely or by transforming a duplex or multi-unit building into a single-family home, for example
  • enlarge it substantially, for example by adding a room
  • change its use, for example to convert it to office or commercial space

Renovations, even if very extensive, are not a legal reason to evict a tenant.

To understand your rights and your options when faced with a notice for eviction or repossession, please see our articles: