Can a Landlord Refuse to Renew a Lease Without a Reason?

What security of tenure actually means

Ontario tenancy law is built around a principle often called security of tenure: once a residential tenancy begins, it generally continues indefinitely until it's ended in one of the specific ways the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (RTA) allows, rather than simply expiring on its own or ending because a landlord decides they'd prefer a different tenant. This is a meaningfully different model from many other kinds of contracts, where a term simply ends and neither party owes the other anything further. For residential tenancies, the law generally treats continued occupancy as the default, not something that needs to be re-earned at each lease renewal point.

Because of this, the common question "can my landlord just not renew my lease?" usually rests on an assumption that doesn't quite match how Ontario law works. There typically isn't a renewal decision for a landlord to make in the way there might be for, say, a commercial lease or a car lease. The tenancy's continuation is generally the legal default, and a landlord who wants it to end instead needs a valid reason recognized by the RTA.

Why "renewal" is the wrong frame in Ontario

In everyday language, people often talk about a lease being "renewed" or "not renewed," borrowing the idea from other kinds of contracts. Under the RTA, however, when a fixed term ends without either side taking action, the tenancy generally continues automatically on a month-to-month basis under the same terms — it doesn't require a landlord's active renewal decision at all. A landlord offering a new fixed-term lease is really offering an alternative to that automatic continuation, not deciding whether the tenancy itself gets to continue. Framing the situation as "will my landlord renew me" can obscure the more accurate — and more protective — question: does the landlord have a valid legal reason to end this tenancy at all?

Why a landlord can't simply "not renew"

Because the tenancy's continuation is the default, a landlord who simply stops offering a new lease, or tells a tenant "we're not renewing you," generally hasn't actually ended the tenancy in a legally effective way. Telling a tenant to leave at the end of a term, without more, is typically not equivalent to serving a valid notice of termination, and a tenant who doesn't want to leave is generally not required to simply because the landlord said the lease "won't be renewed." If the landlord wants the tenant out, they generally still need to rely on one of the specific grounds the RTA recognizes and serve the matching notice form, with proper timing — the same requirement that applies at any other point in a tenancy, not just at a term's end.

The valid reasons a tenancy can actually be ended

The RTA sets out specific categories of reasons a landlord may generally rely on to end a tenancy, each tied to its own notice form and timeline. These include the tenant not paying rent, the landlord or an immediate family member intending to move into the unit themselves, the landlord planning to demolish, substantially renovate, or convert the unit, or a purchaser who intends to occupy the unit after a sale. Each of these pathways has specific requirements — including, in some circumstances, compensation obligations toward the tenant — and each is reviewed by the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) if the tenant disputes it. A landlord simply preferring a different tenant, wanting to increase rent beyond what the sitting tenant pays, or finding the current tenant inconvenient is generally not one of these valid grounds.

Notices landlords sometimes confuse with non-renewal

Some of the confusion around "non-renewal" comes from landlords conflating it with notices like the one used for landlord's own use or purchaser's own use, sometimes informally called an N12. These notices generally have their own strict requirements, including good-faith intention and, in many cases, compensation to the tenant, and they are not simply a substitute for declining to renew a lease. A notice served without a genuine, qualifying reason behind it can generally be challenged at the LTB, and our guide on bad-faith evictions explains how adjudicators generally evaluate whether a stated reason was genuine.

The fixed-term expiry misconception

A related misconception treats the expiry date printed on a fixed-term lease as if it functions like the end of a magazine subscription — something that simply lapses unless actively renewed. As discussed in our piece on how the RTA and a lease interact, the Act generally overrides any lease language suggesting the tenancy simply ends on the stated term date. In most cases, reaching that date without further action triggers automatic continuation on a month-to-month basis, not termination. A landlord cannot generally rely on the printed end date itself as a valid reason to require the tenant to leave.

If a landlord says they "won't renew" your lease

A tenant told by a landlord that their lease "won't be renewed," without a proper notice of termination citing a valid RTA ground, is generally not legally required to move out. The practical first step is usually to ask, in writing, what specific notice and ground the landlord is relying on, since "we're not renewing" by itself typically isn't one. If no valid notice has been served, the tenancy generally continues, and the tenant can usually keep paying rent and remaining in the unit while the situation is clarified. If a notice is eventually served, reviewing it against the requirements in our evictions overview is a reasonable next step.

Options for a tenant facing this situation

A tenant facing pressure to leave without a valid notice generally has several reasonable options: requesting clarification in writing, continuing to pay rent on schedule so there's no independent non-payment issue, documenting all communications, and, if a formal notice is eventually served, considering whether to dispute it at an LTB hearing. Tenants uncertain about their situation may find it useful to review tenant rights in Ontario generally, and landlords uncertain whether their reason for wanting a tenant out actually qualifies under the RTA may find landlord rights in Ontario a useful starting point before taking any action.

It's also worth remembering that security of tenure generally isn't a one-time protection that applies only at the moment a lease is first signed — it generally continues for as long as the tenancy exists, renewal after renewal, year after year, for as long as the tenant wants to stay and continues to meet their obligations. A tenant who has lived in a unit for a single year has, in this respect, generally the same underlying protection as a tenant who has lived there for a decade; length of tenancy by itself generally doesn't change whether a landlord needs a valid reason to end it. This is part of why Ontario's framework is sometimes described as treating a tenancy as presumptively ongoing rather than as a series of separate, renewable contracts.

Landlords sometimes ask whether there's any lawful way to simply "reset" a tenancy by ending it and re-renting to the same tenant under new terms. Generally, this isn't a meaningful workaround: if the landlord doesn't have a valid ground to end the existing tenancy in the first place, trying to restructure it as a fresh agreement generally doesn't avoid that requirement, and a tenant generally isn't obligated to go along with ending and re-starting a tenancy simply because the landlord would prefer different terms going forward. Any new terms a landlord wants — including a different rent amount — generally still need to go through the proper increase and notice mechanisms rather than a contrived non-renewal.

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Reviewed by Ryan J. Manilla, BA, JD

Legal Reviewer · Landlord Tenant Ontario