A landlord's right to enter an occupied unit is a short, specific list — not a general inspection power. Getting the reason, the notice, and the time window wrong turns a routine check into a right-of-entry complaint.
Key takeaways
Landlords tend to think of a rental unit's interior as something they're entitled to check on periodically — it's the asset, after all. The Residential Tenancies Act doesn't see it that way. Once a unit is tenanted, the landlord's right to go inside is a defined list of reasons, each with its own notice rule, and nothing outside that list.
The Landlord and Tenant Board's own guideline on entry starts from the Act's own framing: “section 25 establishes that a landlord can only enter a rental unit in accordance with sections 26 or 27.” Everything else in this article is really just unpacking what those two sections allow, because there is no residual, general entry power sitting outside them.
Some situations let a landlord in without any advance notice at all, but the list is narrow: a genuine emergency; the tenant's consent given at the time of entry; regular cleaning between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. where the tenancy agreement requires it; and showing the unit to a prospective tenant, between the same hours, after a notice of termination has already been given, provided a reasonable effort is made to tell the tenant first. Notably absent from that list: repairs. “A landlord may not enter the rental unit without notice to perform repairs, even where the tenant has requested the repairs, unless the landlord obtains the tenant's consent to enter.” A tenant who calls in a repair request has not thereby pre-authorized entry — consent still has to be obtained at the time, or the landlord falls back to the 24-hour notice route below.
Most legitimate reasons to enter fall under section 27, which requires written notice: at least 24 hours before the time of entry, for repairs and replacements, mortgagee or insurer inspections, professional inspections tied to the landlord's maintenance obligations, showings to a prospective purchaser, and other reasonable purposes actually set out in the tenancy agreement. The notice itself has content requirements, not just a time requirement: it must state “the reason for entry; the date the landlord will enter; and the time of entry between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m.” A vague window doesn't satisfy that — the guideline notes the Divisional Court has found that a nine-hour entry window fails to comply, so a specific time, not a stretch of the day, is what the notice has to give.
One useful exception: common areas. A landlord does not need to serve a notice of entry to enter common areas like hallways in an apartment building — the notice requirement is specific to the rental unit itself, not to shared spaces the landlord already controls, which is the same distinction that matters when checking a building for short-term rental activity happening in a unit, as opposed to common areas.
Compliant individual entries can still add up to a problem. The guideline states the general expectation directly: “the landlord should make reasonable efforts to limit the frequency of entries to those actually necessary,” and if the Board finds a pattern of unnecessary or unreasonable entries, that alone can support a finding of interference or harassment — independent of whether each individual entry, on its own, ticked every procedural box. A tenant also can't refuse entry just because the timing is inconvenient, provided the landlord has actually met the Act's requirements: “a tenant does not have the right to deny entry simply because the time of entry is not convenient to the tenant.” Inconvenience isn't a defence to a properly noticed entry, but excess frequency is a live problem even where every notice was technically correct.
A tenant who believes a landlord entered illegally — wrong reason, missing notice, defective notice, or an excessive pattern of entries — can bring a T2 application to the Board within one year of the incident under section 29(1). Remedies on a successful T2 can include a rent abatement, an order prohibiting further conduct of the same kind, or an administrative fine, depending on what the pattern of entry actually shows. Documentation cuts both ways here: a landlord who keeps a written record of every notice given, its date, reason and time, is in a materially stronger position defending a T2 than one relying on memory of what was said at the door.
A landlord needs to inspect a unit's HVAC system after a building-wide furnace recall. The tenant hasn't reported any issue. The landlord serves written notice two days ahead stating the reason (“furnace inspection tied to manufacturer recall”), the date, and a specific time — 10:00 a.m. to 11:00 a.m. — on a Tuesday. That satisfies section 27: the reason is a professional inspection tied to the landlord's maintenance obligations, the notice exceeds 24 hours, and the window is specific and inside 8 a.m.–8 p.m.
Now vary it: the technician can't make the scheduled window and the landlord's property manager shows up unannounced the next morning instead, reasoning that the original notice covered “the inspection” generally. It doesn't. The notice specified a date and time; entry outside that window, on a different day, without fresh notice, is not entry under a valid section 27 notice — it needs its own 24-hour notice, specifying its own time, even for what is functionally the same inspection.
No, not on the strength of the repair request alone. The Act treats repair entry the same as any other section 27 reason: 24 hours' written notice, unless the tenant separately consents to a specific entry at the time it happens.
No. The notice has to state a specific time, not a broad range — the Divisional Court has already found a nine-hour window non-compliant, and the same reasoning applies to any window that isn't a genuine, specific time of entry.
No. The notice-of-entry requirement is specific to the rental unit itself. Common areas like hallways and lobbies, which the landlord already controls, aren't covered by sections 26 or 27.
File a T2 application within one year of the conduct. Even entries that were each individually noticed correctly can, taken together as an excessive pattern, support a finding of interference or harassment under the Act.
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