Housing Equity and Rental Transparency Act, 2025

SUMMARY FROM THE OFFICIAL REGISTRY

What you need to know

The Bill makes amendments to the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 , including the following: 1. A new section 20.1 is added to require a landlord of a residential complex to maintain an indoor temperature of 26 degrees Celsius or less from May 15 to September 15 in the common areas of the residential complex. Under the new section 20.2, local municipalities are required to investigate complaints for failure to comply with section 20.1 and to give work orders to landlords that set out, among other things, the period within which compliance with section 20.1 must be achieved. Local municipalities are given the power to appoint inspectors for the purposes of section 20.2. Consequential amendments are made to section 30 to allow the Landlord and Tenant Board to order an abatement of rent for breaching a work order made under section 20.2 or to order the landlord to perform the work described in the work order. 2. A new section 20.4 is added to require landlords of residential complexes with 100 rental units or more to install a digital visitor parking registration system. 3. Section 21 is amended to require the Board to order, on application by a tenant, an abatement of rent of 20 per cent if a vital service is withheld for more than 24 hours over a three-month period. 4. A new section 24.1 is added to require a landlord of a residential complex to install and maintain a video surveillance system in each building of the residential complex that has 100 rental units or more and to provide rules on the use of the system. Under the new section 24.2, landlords are also required to repair the video surveillance system in case of damages. A new section 24.3 requires a landlord of a residential complex to employ or otherwise engage a security guard for each building that has 100 rental units or more, and describes the duties of a security guard. 5. Section 58 is amended to provide that paragraph 1 of subsection 58 (1), which authorizes a landlord to give a tenant notice of termination of their tenancy if their tenant has persistently failed to pay rent on the date it becomes due and payable, does not apply if some or all of the rent is paid directly to the landlord under section 13 of the Ontario Disability Support Program Act, 1997 or section 18 of the Ontario Works Act, 1997 . 6. Section 134 is amended to prohibit a landlord or a person acting on behalf of the landlord to collect or require or attempt to collect from a tenant a fee for the use of visitor parking facilities. 7. A new section 226.6 is added to require every landlord of a residential complex that contains 10 or more rental units or three or more storeys to compile, on March 1 of every year, statistical information in a digital format on the maintenance requests the landlord has received in the preceding 12 months and to upload them on the online portal made available by the Minister under the new section 227.1. A new section 226.7 is added to provide that, in a proceeding before the Board, the information contained in the online portal is deemed to form part of the record if the Board considers the information to be relevant for the application made to the Board. The Bill also makes amendments to the Technical Standards and Safety Act, 2000 , including the following: 1. A new section 20.1 is added to require owners of elevators to use a remote electronic monitoring system that registers information on the elevator’s operating availability. 2. A new section 20.2 is added to require the owner of an elevator to submit a report to the Technical Standards and Safety Authority (the Corporation) if the elevator is located in a building with one or more rental units and experiences an outage for more than 24 hours. The report must be submitted within seven days after the period of 24 hours has elapsed and the owner must submit a subsequent report to the Corporation no later than seven days after the day the elevator is returned to service. The new section also authorizes a tenant to submit a report to the Corporation and describes the required content of the report.

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