Effective March 16th, 2020 the Board announced that it was suspending in-person hearings and closing its counter services until further notice in response to the COVID19 pandemic.
Any in-person hearings scheduled for the near term (at least the next 2 weeks) will be rescheduled to a later date, to be determined by the Board.
Landlords that have received a hearing notice for an A4 (Rent Variation) or an L5 (Above Guideline Rent Increase) application should continue to serve those notices and file their certificates of service with the LTB either by email or fax. The email and fax numbers for the Board can be found on their website: http://www.sjto.gov.on.ca/ltb/.
For those applications where notice has been received from the Board for a written hearing, it is expected the process can continue throughout the shutdown as long as the Board has staff in place to receive, send and process submissions. If not, then a request for an extension of time may be necessary once services resume to complete the written submission phase of the process.
At this point, there has been no indication whether the Board will extend the filing deadline for applications that would otherwise have a limitation period of March 31st, 2020 to file (i.e. A4 Applications and AGIs where the 18 month period for capital expenditures has been reached).
During this suspension period, landlords may file their A4 and AGI applications with the LTB by fax, regular mail or courier to any Regional Office of the Board. The rules deem service to occur 5 days after mailing, so any application with a deadline of March 31st should be sent by mail or courier no later than March 26, 2020 to meet the deadline.
The Board has also announced they will temporarily suspend the practice of scheduling a “merits” hearing when issuing a case management hearing notice for AGI applications. This is in response to a resource shortage and not COVID19. Landlords should be prepared for additional delays in the processing of their applications with the Board.
If you have any questions, please do not hesitate to contact Paul Cappa at or 519-672-9330.