Cleaning Fees (LTB)

Caselaw.Ninja, Riverview Group Publishing 2021 ©
Date Retrieved:	2024-04-19
CLNP Page ID:	2028
Page Categories:	[Landlord & Tenant (Residential)], [Section 105 (RTA)]
Citation:	Cleaning Fees (LTB), CLNP 2028, <https://rvt.link/1y>, retrieved on 2024-04-19
Editor:	Sharvey
Last Updated:	2023/02/15

TST-73248-16 (Re), 2016 CanLII 44270 (ON LTB)

11. Subsection 105(2) of the Act defines “security deposit” as:

money, property or a right paid or given by, or on behalf of, a tenant of a rental unit to a landlord or to anyone on the landlord’s behalf to be held by or for the account of the landlord as security for the performance of an obligation or the payment of a liability of the tenant or to be returned to the tenant upon the happening of a condition.

12. The parties agree that the cleaning fee that the Tenants paid is to be refunded to the Tenants if at the end of the tenancy the Tenants return the rental unit to the Landlord in clean and orderly condition. Because this is a fee that is held as a security to be returned to the Tenants upon the happening of a condition, the cleaning fee is a “security deposit” as defined in subs. 105(2) of the Act. As such, I find that the cleaning fee is money collected illegally, as it was a security deposit collected contrary to subs. 105(1) of the Act.

Chan v Yapson, 2021 CanLII 146779 (ON LTB)

4. The Tenant states that several days after vacating the rental unit, she inquired with the Landlord as to when she would receive the last month rental deposit since she had paid her last month’s rent in full and had vacated the unit by the date agreed upon between the parties. On March 8, 2020, the Landlord indicated that he was applying a $1,000.00 cleaning fee and that he would only return $700.00 from the last month rent deposit.

(...)

13. Based on the evidence before me, I find, on the balance of probabilities that the Tenant paid a last month’s rent deposit in the amount of $1,700.00 prior to taking possession of the rental unit, that the last month’s rent deposit was not applied to the last rent period of the tenancy and, further, that as of the date of the hearing the Landlord has only returned $850.00 of the last month’s rent deposit to the Tenant. This is prohibited by the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 (the 'Act').