What changed
- Section 48.1 of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 requires a landlord who serves a notice under section 48 to pay one month's rent or offer another acceptable unit. From 21 September 2026 that requirement is subject to a new exception.
- The exception needs three things at once: the notice given on or after that day, a termination date at least 120 days out, and a termination date that falls at the end of a period of the tenancy or the end of a fixed term.
- Two changes run the other way on the same day. A presumption of bad faith where nobody moves in, and a landlord duty to tell a returning tenant when the unit will be ready.
What changes on 21 September 2026
Three things, and they come from two different Acts brought into force on the same day by order of the Lieutenant Governor in Council.
The Fighting Delays, Building Faster Act, 2025 adds subsection 48.1(2) and makes the existing section subject to it. The Helping Homebuyers, Protecting Tenants Act, 2023 adds subsection 57(6.1), subsections 53(2.1) and (2.2), and subsection 57.1(1.1).
The first favours a landlord who plans far enough ahead. The other two favour a tenant who was moved out and then not dealt with properly.
When is the compensation still owed?
Section 48.1 as it stands says a landlord shall compensate a tenant in an amount equal to one month's rent, or offer the tenant another rental unit acceptable to the tenant, where the landlord gives a notice of termination under section 48. That is the landlord's own use notice.
The new subsection (2) removes that requirement only where three conditions are met together. The notice has to be given on or after the day the amending provision comes into force. The termination date has to be at least 120 days after the notice is given. And the termination date has to be the day a period of the tenancy ends, or where the tenancy is for a fixed term, the end of that term.
A notice that misses any one of the three leaves section 48.1 doing what it does now. A notice served with 90 days, or one ending mid-period, still carries the month's rent.
So the first question on a notice served from that date is arithmetic rather than argument: count the days, and check where the date falls in the tenancy.
The presumption of bad faith
New subsection 57(6.1) changes who has to prove what on a former tenant's application under clause 57(1)(a). If nobody referred to in clause 48(1)(a), (b), (c) or (d) occupied the rental unit within the prescribed period after the former tenant vacated, it is presumed, unless the contrary is proven on a balance of probabilities, that the landlord gave the section 48 notice in bad faith and that the unit was not occupied within a reasonable time.
That is a reverse onus on the point that has always been hardest for a former tenant to establish. Proving what a landlord intended at the moment of service is difficult. Showing that nobody moved in is a matter of record.
The presumption is rebuttable, so it changes the starting position rather than the outcome.
Telling a returning tenant when the unit is ready
A tenant who receives a notice for repairs or renovations can give notice of an intention to return, which is the right of first refusal in section 53. New subsection 53(2.1) attaches duties to that.
The landlord shall, without delay after receiving the tenant's notice, tell the tenant in writing the estimated date the unit is expected to be ready. The landlord shall then, without delay after becoming aware of any change to a previously estimated date, tell the tenant in writing the new estimate.
New subsection 57.1(1.1) gives that duty teeth. A landlord who fails to comply with subsection 53(2.1) or (2.2) is deemed, for the purposes of subsection 57.1(1) only, to have failed to afford the former tenant a right of first refusal, which is what opens the remedies in subsection 57(3).
The detail sits on paralegal services, which is kept current as the rules move.
