Joint Tenancy Re: Notice of Termination by Tenants

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Date Retrieved:	2024-05-06
CLNP Page ID:	1190
Page Categories:	[Notice of Termination by Tenant (LTB)]
Citation:	Joint Tenancy Re: Notice of Termination by Tenants, CLNP 1190, <https://rvt.link/2c>, retrieved on 2024-05-06
Editor:	Sharvey
Last Updated:	2023/11/08

TNL-94159-17 (Re), 2017 CanLII 60329 (ON LTB)

8. Subsection 77(1)(a) of the RTA provides that a tenancy may be terminated where “the landlord and tenant have entered into an agreement to terminate the tenancy.” The subsection is silent on whether, where there are several joint tenants, an agreement with only one of them is sufficient to terminate the tenancy.

9. The interpretation of subsection 77(1)(a) in a joint tenancy is not settled law. However, in a number of recent decisions, the Board has found that to terminate a joint tenancy, all the tenants as well as the landlord must agree to the termination. In my view, that is the correct approach. This tenancy was formed by a three-party agreement between I.H., B.H., and the Landlord. The agreement of all three parties would also be required to dissolve it. To hold otherwise would be to effectively permit I.H. and the Landlord to evict B.H. without notice, without any grounds, and without her consent.

10. My interpretation is consistent with the common law that governed residential tenancies before modern legislation was enacted. At common law, there was a general principle that “any legal act, eg., a conveyance or lease of the land, or a surrender of the lease requires the participation of all the joint tenants; one cannot dispose of it by himself, for he by himself has not the whole estate in it” (quoted in Soucy v. Milton Heights Inc., 2015 SKQB 126 (CanLII)).

11. At common law, there was an exception for periodic tenancies. A periodic tenancy could be terminated by a landlord or tenant simply giving notice that they would not renew the tenancy for another month. Since any party could terminate the tenancy by unilateral notice of non-renewal, the agreement of all the tenants was not required. That type of residential tenancy no longer exists in Ontario. Pursuant to sections 37 and 38 of the RTA, a periodic tenancy renews automatically and cannot be terminated except in accordance with the procedures in the RTA.

12. In my view, the Legislature intended that the general common-law principle, that a joint tenancy cannot be surrendered without the consent of all the tenants, would apply to tenancies under the RTA. There is nothing in the RTA to suggest otherwise, and sections 37 and 38 are intended to strictly limit the ways in which a tenancy can be terminated.

13. Since B.H. did not agree to terminate the tenancy, the application will be dismissed.