The APS binds the buyer to the price and the closing date. Ontario’s tenancy law binds the buyer to something else entirely: the tenant who is already there.
Short answer
Yes. “A change of ownership does not end a tenancy” — the buyer steps into the landlord's position on closing and takes the tenancy exactly as it stands: same tenant, same rent, same terms, same history. Nothing about the lease itself changes; only the identity of the landlord does.
Treadstone Law states the principle in one line: “A change of ownership does not end a tenancy”. The follow-on point matters just as much: “The buyer steps into the landlord’s position on closing and takes the tenancy exactly as it stands: same tenant, same rent, same terms, same history”. A buyer who wants different terms has to negotiate them with the sitting tenant after closing, the same as any other landlord would — the sale itself changes nothing about the lease.
Survival is the default, not a loophole to plan around. Ending it lawfully still runs through one of the same three routes as any other tenancy: the tenant leaves voluntarily, both sides agree to terminate, or the new owner serves an N12 for their own use — each with its own notice period and, for the N12, a mandatory compensation payment. There is no fourth route where a sale, by itself, ends a lease.
Ontario’s own tenant-rights page lists “are selling the property and the purchaser will be using the unit themselves” among its no-fault eviction grounds — a signal that the province treats a sale-for-occupancy as a distinct, compensable event, not something that happens automatically the moment a deal closes.
The last month’s rent deposit does not get cashed out at closing — it moves with the tenancy: “The last month’s rent deposit follows the tenancy. It is credited to the buyer on the statement of adjustments along with the interest that has accrued on it, because the buyer will one day have to apply it to the final month”. On the paperwork side, “the new landlord has to tell the tenant who they are and where notices can be served, and give directions for paying rent”. And a sale is not a rent-increase event: “buying the property does not reset any of that”, so the ordinary one-increase-per-twelve-months, 90-day-notice, guideline-rate rules keep running exactly as before.
how a buyer actually gets vacant possession and vacant possession, defined.
A 30-minute call is enough to map where your own practice and paperwork would hold up.
