Last Month's Rent Deposit (LTB)

Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, S.O. 2006, c. 17

106 (1) A landlord may require a tenant to pay a rent deposit with respect to a tenancy if the landlord does so on or before entering into the tenancy agreement.

(2) The amount of a rent deposit shall not be more than the lesser of the amount of rent for one rent period and the amount of rent for one month.

(3) If the lawful rent increases after a tenant has paid a rent deposit, the landlord may require the tenant to pay an additional amount to increase the rent deposit up to the amount permitted by subsection (2). 2006, c. 17, s. 106 (3); 2013, c. 3, s. 32 (1).

SWT-00924 (Re), 2008 CanLII 82447 (ON LTB)

9. In the current case, I believe that the Tenant is partially statute barred in his claim. The Tenant vacated the unit on September 20, 2007 and waited until December 14, 2007 to file his application. As in Vander Heide, the Tenant is no longer in possession of the rental unit. I find that the Tenant is therefore only entitled to recover for the period from December 14, 2006 to December 14, 2007. As well, in both the Vander Heide and Dollimore cases the landlord had illegally retained money. The act of “retaining”, as pointed out in Dollimore, is an ongoing act. In those cases the landlords were under a positive obligation to pay out the funds. In this case, the Landlord has illegally collected money. The act of collecting is a discreet act. Each month after July 1, 2003 this Landlord collected from the Tenant an amount that was not the lawful rent. Each collection could result in its own cause of action with the limitation period re-starting with each collection.

TEL-15104-11 (Re), 2011 CanLII 50465 (ON LTB)

2. The Tenant did not pay the total rent he was required to pay for the period from June 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011. The last month’s rent deposit can only be applied to the last month of the tenancy. The termination date in this matter could not have been earlier than July 31, 2011 unless the Landlords agreed to an earlier date. That didn’t happen. Therefore, the Tenant is responsible for rent for the period of June 1, 2011 to June 30, 2011. If the parties have agreed to end the tenancy as of July 31, 2011 then the last month’s rent deposit can be applied to the period of July 1, 2011 to July 31, 2011.

TST-39222-13 (Re), 2013 CanLII 51051 (ON LTB)

5. An LMR is not a damage deposit; it is a rent deposit and can only be applied to rent (see section 105 of the Act). Similarly, sections 95 and 96 of the Act allow a landlord to charge “only for the landlord’s reasonable out-of-pocket expenses incurred in giving consent”, not the cost of cleaning.

6. I therefore find the Tenants should be entitled to the return of LMR and the filing fee.

TEL-82407-17 (Re), 2017 CanLII 60480 (ON LTB)

10. Pursuant to subsection 106(10) of the Act a deposit can only be applied to the rent due for the last month of the tenancy. Here, the tenancy was terminated on consent by way of a Board order effective July 31, 2017 so July is the last month of the tenancy and the deposit must be applied to the rent due for July, 2017.

11. As a result, I have amended the application to include the unpaid rent arrears from the month of May, 2017.