Landlord and Tenant Board Ontario: How the LTB Process Works

The Landlord and Tenant Board is the tribunal that decides almost every dispute between Ontario landlords and tenants under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, and its exclusive jurisdiction means these cases do not go to a regular court unless a party appeals a decision on a question of law.

Information last verified on 2026-08-17. This article has not yet been reviewed by a licensed lawyer.

This article covers the machinery of the Landlord and Tenant Board itself: what the tribunal is, how to start an application, what a hearing looks like, current wait times, and how an order gets enforced. It does not cover the eviction notices a landlord must serve before applying, the province's rent increase guideline, or Ontario tenant rights generally; for those, see Eviction Notices in Canada, Rent Increase Rules in Canada, and Ontario Tenant Rights. Landlords using the N12 own-use notice, one of the most contested LTB application types, should also see N12 and Landlord's Own Use. Quebec's parallel tribunal, the TAL, is covered separately in The Tribunal Administratif du Logement.

What the Landlord and Tenant Board Is

The Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) is a tribunal within Tribunals Ontario, continued under Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (RTA) section 168(1) as the successor to the former Ontario Rental Housing Tribunal, and known in French as the Commission de la location immobiliere. Section 168(2) is the LTB's core grant of authority:

'The Board has exclusive jurisdiction to determine all applications under this Act and with respect to all matters in which jurisdiction is conferred on it by this Act.' (RTA, s.168(2))

Section 174 adds that the Board decides both questions of law and questions of fact within that jurisdiction. Two things follow from exclusive jurisdiction. First, most residential tenancy disputes in Ontario cannot start in an ordinary court at all; they have to go to the LTB. Second, because the LTB is governed procedurally by the Statutory Powers Procedure Act rather than the Courts of Justice Act (RTA s.184(1)), it is an administrative tribunal, not a court, even though it functions like one for the disputes it hears. It follows a more informal process than a civil trial, including the mediation and online dispute resolution options described below, and its decisions are appealable to a real court only in the narrow circumstances covered later in this article.

Beyond ordinary landlord-tenant matters, Tribunals Ontario describes the LTB's role broadly: it resolves disputes between landlords and tenants and can end a tenancy or a co-op member's occupancy. That last point matters because the LTB also decides non-profit co-operative housing eviction applications, a separate stream from ordinary rental tenancies, using its own C-series forms.

Starting a Case: Applications, Forms and Fees

Every LTB case starts with an application, and which form to file depends on who is applying and why. Landlord applications use an L prefix, tenant applications use a T prefix, and a shared set of A-prefixed forms cover issues either side can raise, such as whether the Act applies to a tenancy at all. The table below covers the highest-volume forms; it is not the complete list, and the current fee schedule should always be checked directly with the LTB before filing, since fees change.

Before filing an application, the Ontario tenancy notice calculator can work out the earliest valid termination date for a notice like N4, N5, N7, N8, N9, N12, or N13 based on how it was delivered and the type of tenancy.

A landlord seeking an Above Guideline Increase files a separate L5 application, priced on a sliding scale by unit count rather than a flat fee; a multi-tenant application, where several tenants join one application, costs $53 for the first unit plus $5 for each additional unit up to a maximum of $450 and must be filed by mail or courier, since it is one of the application types the online Portal does not accept.

The Tribunals Ontario Portal is the LTB's online filing and case management system. It covers most L1 through L10 applications, T1, T2, T5, T6, and the co-op C1 and C2 applications, and lets a party file and pay, track a case, submit evidence, message the other side, and in some cases use the online dispute resolution tool described in the next section. Filing requires a Public Secure account, and a party responding to an application links their own account to the case using the file number and a five-digit PIN the LTB issues.

Nearly all LTB fees are non-refundable. The one exception is the fee for requesting a review of an order, covered later in this article, which RTA section 182 allows the Board to refund if the review results in the order being varied, suspended or cancelled. A Fee Waiver Request form exists for parties who cannot afford the filing fee, submitted by mail, courier or in person at a ServiceOntario location; the LTB's own materials describe the form without stating the income or eligibility test it applies, so anyone relying on a waiver should confirm the current criteria directly with the LTB rather than assume a threshold.

How an LTB Hearing Works

Once an application is filed, the LTB sends a Notice of Hearing that states the type of application, its purpose, the hearing format, and the date and time; most parties receive it by email, and paper notices go mainly to unrepresented parties who have not agreed to electronic service.

LTB hearings happen in one of three formats. Video hearings, generally by Zoom, are the most common format, and parties are told to log in about 15 minutes early; phone hearings are also used. Written hearings, where parties submit explanations and documents instead of appearing live, are used mainly for L5 Above Guideline Increase applications. In-person hearings happen only where a party requests and is granted accommodation because participating electronically would cause them significant prejudice.

Before a case reaches a full hearing, parties using the Portal can try to resolve it through an online dispute resolution tool on their own, and a Dispute Resolution Officer may get involved to help decide whether the case should go to mediation or straight to a hearing. A resolution reached this way can take the form of a payment plan, a consent order, or another mediated settlement, without ever reaching a hearing.

Showing up matters. The LTB's own guidance is direct about what happens to a party who does not attend and is not represented: the adjudicator can dismiss the application or decide it without that party present.

Two accessibility points are worth naming specifically because they are practical, not procedural footnotes. A party who files in French is assigned a bilingual adjudicator automatically and gets bilingual proceedings; a responding party who wants French-language service has to file a Request for French-Language Services form in advance. Separately, an Accommodation Request form, sent to the LTB, can arrange ASL or LSQ interpretation, real-time captioning, and an in-person hearing where electronic participation would cause genuine prejudice.

Unrepresented tenants facing a hearing, particularly an eviction application, are not on their own by default. The Tenant Duty Counsel Program, delivered through roughly 30 legal clinics across the province and funded by Legal Aid Ontario through the Advocacy Centre for Tenants Ontario, offers free legal advice and help, with priority given to tenants facing eviction, available on or before the scheduled hearing date. Sign-up runs through tdc.acto.ca. This article names the program because it is a real, funded resource, not because any particular clinic or lawyer is being recommended.

How Long a Case Takes: Two Different Numbers, Not One

Ask how long an LTB case takes and there are two honest but different answers, because two different things get measured. Conflating them either overstates how fast the system is or understates the real improvement it has made.

The first number is Tribunals Ontario's own internal performance target. For fiscal year 2025-26 (April 1, 2025 to March 31, 2026), the Board's target is to schedule 80 percent of hearings within 50 calendar days of filing for L1 and L9 applications, or 55 calendar days for other application types; through the first three quarters it hit that target 78 to 81 percent of the time. A second target covers how fast decisions come out after a hearing: 80 percent of decisions within 20 calendar days for L1 and L9, or 35 calendar days for other types, met 83 to 89 percent of the time so far. A broader 90-day standard, covering the full case lifecycle from filing to decision, was met only 51 to 53 percent of the time for English-language applications and 32 to 39 percent for French-language and bilingual applications, both below the Board's own 80 percent target. Volume over that same period was substantial: roughly 68,579 English-language hearing events and 857 French or bilingual hearing events, with 1,050 accommodation requests granted.

The second number is the LTB's own plain-language description of how long a party actually waits for a hearing date, and it is not phrased as a filing-to-scheduling metric at all. The Board states that L1 and L9 applications are now scheduled in about 3 months, down from 8 to 10 months in early 2023, while most other application types take 5 to 7 months, and urgent matters move in about 5 to 6 weeks. Decisions typically follow within 30 days of the hearing, and the Board tells parties to contact it if nothing has arrived within 60 days. On the same page, the Board reports scheduling more than 105,000 hearings and resolving nearly 100,000 cases in 2024, describing it as the highest volume of both in the Board's history.

Both numbers should be read against where the LTB was in 2023. The Ontario Ombudsman's May 2023 report, Administrative Justice Delayed, Fairness Denied, found a backlog of more than 38,000 pending applications as of February 2023, with landlord applications typically scheduled six to nine months out and tenant applications taking as long as two years. The report also found that the Board's own pre-crisis internal target, scheduling eviction applications within 25 business days, was met zero times in fiscal 2020-21, when the actual average was 72.7 days, and it made 61 recommendations to the Board and to government. Measured against that starting point, both of the current numbers above represent real, documented improvement. Measured against the Board's own current 80 percent target for the full 90-day cycle, the improvement is real but incomplete: that standard is still missed roughly half the time. Neither the idea that the backlog is fixed nor the idea that nothing has changed since 2023 is an accurate description of where things stand.

Requesting a Review of an LTB Order

A review is the LTB's own internal correction mechanism, separate from an appeal to a court, and it changed in a way that matters for anyone with a recent order. RTA section 209(1) makes an LTB order final and binding except as the Statutory Powers Procedure Act's section 21.2 allows it to be reviewed. As of July 1, 2026, under the amended RTA section 209(3), a request to review all or part of an order must be submitted within 15 calendar days of the order being issued, unless the Board considers it just to extend that time. Before July 1, 2026, the deadline was 30 days; an order issued before that date keeps the 30-day window it was issued under, while an order issued on or after July 1, 2026 is subject to the new 15-day deadline. This change is part of a broader package of amendments to the RTA that took effect July 1, 2026, introduced through the Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act (Bill 60) and the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023 (Bill 97); the same package shortened an Above Guideline Increase service deadline from 14 to 7 days and raised the maximum fines described later in this article.

A review is not available simply because a party disagrees with the outcome. The grounds are a serious error in the order, or that the requesting party was unable to participate in the original proceeding. The fee is $58, and RTA section 182 allows it to be refunded, but only if the review results in the order being varied, suspended or cancelled.

Appealing to the Divisional Court

An appeal is a different remedy from a review, decided by a different body, on different grounds, with a different deadline, and the two are easy to conflate. RTA section 210(1) sets the appeal route: any person affected by an LTB order may appeal it to the Divisional Court within 30 days of being given the order, but only on a question of law. A disagreement with how the adjudicator weighed the evidence, or with a discretionary call the adjudicator was entitled to make, is not by itself a question of law and is not, on its own, a valid ground of appeal.

If an appeal proceeds, section 210(4) gives the Divisional Court the power to affirm, rescind, amend or replace the LTB's decision, or to send the matter back to the Board along with the court's opinion on the legal question. Section 210(5) lets the court make any other order it considers proper, including an order for costs. The Board itself is also entitled to appeal a Divisional Court decision as though it were a party, under section 211.

Put plainly, if the concern is a factual mistake or a procedural failure that meets the serious-error test, the faster and cheaper path is a review request within 15 days at the LTB. If the concern is a genuine legal error, the path is an appeal to the Divisional Court within 30 days, which is a real court proceeding, not a form filed with the Board.

Enforcing an LTB Order

Getting an order from the LTB does not, by itself, let a landlord retake possession of a unit. RTA section 39 sets the rule directly: a landlord shall not recover possession of a rental unit subject to a tenancy unless the tenant has vacated or abandoned the unit, or an LTB order evicting the tenant has authorized the possession. Section 85 then determines how an eviction order is carried out: it has the same effect, and is enforced the same way, as a writ of possession. In practice that means only the sheriff, operating as the Court Enforcement Office, can physically enforce it. The LTB's own tenant-facing brochure on illegal lockouts states this without qualification: only a sheriff from the Court Enforcement Office can force a tenant to move out, and that can only happen after the landlord has received an eviction order from the LTB and the tenant has not moved out by the date the order specifies. Changing the locks, removing belongings, or shutting off utilities to force a tenant out is not a shortcut; section 234(w) makes unlawfully recovering possession of a rental unit a provincial offence, and as of July 2026, the maximum fine for that offence rose from $50,000 to $100,000 for an individual and from $250,000 to $500,000 for a corporation, under the Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023, part of the same July 2026 package of RTA amendments described above.

Eviction orders also expire if a landlord sits on them. Under RTA section 81, an eviction order expires six months after it takes effect unless it is filed within that window with the sheriff who has territorial jurisdiction where the unit is located. A tenant-possession order, the kind that restores an illegally locked-out tenant under section 31, runs on a much shorter clock: it expires after 15 days unless filed with the sheriff, or after 45 days if it is filed within that first 15-day window. For certain grounds, mainly an illegal act, trade or business at the unit, or notices given under sections 63, 65 or 66, section 84 requires the Board to ask the sheriff to expedite enforcement, an explicit fast-track distinct from the ordinary queue.

A tenant who believes they have been illegally locked out has options before or alongside contacting the sheriff. The LTB's brochure advises contacting police if needed, calling the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit, filing a T2 application for an order restoring access and continuing the tenancy, and getting legal advice, and it warns that urgency matters: once someone else is living in the unit, the LTB cannot order the landlord to let the original tenant back in. This article describes the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit only at the level the LTB's own brochure does; its full statutory role was not independently verified for this article, so treat it as a contact point for a lockout complaint rather than a complete description of everything the unit does.

Disclaimer: This article provides general information about how the Landlord and Tenant Board handles applications, hearings, reviews, appeals and enforcement under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 and the Statutory Powers Procedure Act, current as of August 2026, including rule changes effective July 1, 2026. It is not legal advice. It does not cover eviction notice types, the rent increase guideline, or general Ontario tenant rights; see the linked articles for those topics. Fee waiver eligibility and the current active caseload were not independently confirmed and are not stated here. Further amendments that took effect at the LTB on September 21, 2026, including a shorter notice period for non-payment of rent and new limits on when the Board may delay or set aside an eviction order, are not covered in this article; see the LTB's operational update of that date. Consult the Landlord and Tenant Board directly or a lawyer licensed in Ontario for advice on a specific case.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Landlord and Tenant Board a court?

No. It is an administrative tribunal continued under RTA section 168, governed procedurally by the Statutory Powers Procedure Act rather than the Courts of Justice Act (RTA s.184(1)). It has exclusive jurisdiction over most residential tenancy disputes in Ontario, and its orders can be appealed to the Divisional Court, a real court, only on a question of law.

Can a landlord evict a tenant without going to the LTB?

No. RTA section 39 bars a landlord from recovering possession of a unit unless the tenant vacated or abandoned it, or an LTB order authorized the eviction. Self-help eviction, such as changing the locks or removing belongings, is a provincial offence under section 234(w), with maximum fines raised to 100,000 dollars for an individual and 500,000 dollars for a corporation as of July 2026.

How long does it take to get an LTB hearing?

It depends which measure is used. The Board's own performance target is to schedule 80 percent of hearings within 50 to 55 calendar days of filing, met 78 to 81 percent of the time in FY2025-26 so far. Separately, the Board's plain language wait estimate is about 3 months for non-payment applications and 5 to 7 months for most other types, down from 8 to 10 months in early 2023.

What is the difference between requesting a review and filing an appeal?

A review asks the LTB itself to reconsider its own order for a serious error or because a party could not participate, must be filed within 15 days of the order as of July 1, 2026, and costs 58 dollars. An appeal goes to the Divisional Court, a real court, only on a question of law, must be filed within 30 days under RTA section 210(1), and is a separate legal proceeding, not a form filed with the Board.

Who can actually remove a tenant from a unit?

Only a sheriff acting through the Court Enforcement Office, and only after the landlord holds an eviction order the tenant has not complied with. RTA section 85 treats an eviction order the same way as a writ of possession, and a landlord who tries to force a move-out any other way commits an offence under section 234(w).

What does it cost to file an LTB application?

It depends on the form. Most standard landlord applications, including L1, L2, L3, L9 and L10, cost 201 dollars by mail or 186 dollars through the Tribunals Ontario Portal; most tenant applications, including T1, T2, T5 and T6, cost 53 dollars by mail or 48 dollars through the Portal. Fees change, so confirm the current schedule directly with the LTB before filing.

Is help available if I cannot afford a lawyer or the filing fee?

A Fee Waiver Request form exists for parties who cannot afford LTB fees, though this article does not state its eligibility criteria since the LTB's own materials did not spell them out; confirm current requirements directly with the LTB. Separately, the Tenant Duty Counsel Program offers free legal help to unrepresented tenants through Legal Aid Ontario funded clinics, with priority given to tenants facing eviction.

Can I attend an LTB hearing in person?

Not by default. Most hearings are video or phone, and written hearings are used mainly for Above Guideline Increase applications. An in-person hearing happens only if a party requests and is granted accommodation because participating electronically would cause significant prejudice.