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ONTARIO COMPLIANCE

LTB Form N4: non-payment of rent

The most-served notice in Ontario, and the one most often served wrong — usually by miscounting the notice period or filing the L1 too early.

Last reviewed 22 August 2026
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In short
How much notice does an N4 require?
14 days for monthly tenancies and fixed-term leases; 7 days for daily or weekly tenancies. The period runs from when the tenant is considered to have received the notice, not from the date written on the form.
Does an N4 evict a tenant?
No. An N4 is notice that rent is owed and the tenancy will end if it is not paid. If the tenant neither pays nor leaves by the termination date, the landlord must file an L1 application with the Landlord and Tenant Board — only a Board order ends the tenancy.
Can a tenant stop an N4 by paying?
Yes. Paying the full amount owing before the termination date voids the notice and the tenancy continues as though it had never been served.
Rules, rates and fees change — this page reflects publicly published sources as of 22 August 2026 and isn't legal or tax advice. Confirm current requirements against the sources linked below, or with a licensed professional, before making a compliance decision.

The notice period, and where landlords miscount it

An N4 requires 14 days' notice for a monthly tenancy or a fixed-term lease, and 7 days for a daily or weekly tenancy. The count runs from the date the tenant is deemed to have received the notice — not the date you filled the form in, and not the date you posted it. Serving by mail adds deemed-delivery days, and a termination date that does not leave the full period after deemed receipt is defective on its face.

This is the single most common defect in N4s, and it is fatal in an unhelpful way: the Board does not adjust your date, it dismisses the application, and you start again having lost the weeks the first notice took.

Paying voids the notice

If the tenant pays everything owed before the termination date, the N4 is void and the tenancy continues. A landlord who accepts a full payment and proceeds to file anyway is filing on a notice that no longer exists.

Partial payment does not void the notice, but it does change the arithmetic — the amount claimed in any subsequent application has to reflect what was actually received, and a figure that does not reconcile invites an adjournment.

After the termination date: the L1

An expired N4 leads to an L1 application, the Application to Evict a Tenant for Non-payment of Rent and to Collect Rent. It can be filed only once the termination date has passed, and only while the tenant is still in the unit — filing on the termination date itself is early, and it will be treated as such.

Plan for the Board's timelines rather than your own. Tribunals Ontario's 2024-25 Annual Report put the LTB's active caseload at 41,465 as of 31 March 2025, down from a December 2023 peak of 53,057, with processing times across that year broadly in the three-to-seven-month range. Any single figure you see quoted for time-to-hearing should be read as one point in a range the Board itself does not present as a single number.

Direct PMS shows arrears per tenancy as they age, so an N4 is served on a figure that reconciles rather than one assembled the night before.

Arrears at a glance →