Services in Ontario - Landlord and Tenant Board

During the COVID-19 situation, many community legal clinics are no longer meeting with people in person, but will provide services over the phone. Call ahead for more information.

Legal Aid Ontario funds community legal clinics across Ontario to give free legal services to people with low incomes. Lawyers, community legal workers, and law students can help people with some legal problems, like social assistance, housing, and workers’ rights.

To get help from a clinic:

• your legal issue must be one the clinic deals with
• you must live in the area the clinic serves
• you must have a low income

Most clinics also give brief advice or what’s called “summary advice”, without asking about your financial situation. If your local clinic can’t help you, they may be able to refer you to someone in your community who can.

If you have a telephone hearing during the COVID-19 situation, you can sign up for free legal advice at tdc.acto.ca or call 1-877-374-0391.

Tenant duty counsel help tenants who don’t have a lawyer on the day of their hearing with the Landlord and Tenant Board. The Landlord and Tenant Board is the tribunal that decides issues between landlords and tenants.

Duty counsel are lawyers and legal workers paid for by Legal Aid Ontario. They can:

• give legal advice
• review documents and prepare forms
• help tenants and landlords agree on issues
• sometimes represent tenants during a hearing

If you have a telephone hearing, you can usually talk to duty counsel when you call in for your hearing. Try to call at least 30 minutes early.

The association has a listing of housing help centres. These centres help people find a place to live, avoid eviction, and get financial support, including social assistance, rent bank loans, and help to pay utility bills.

CERA is an organization that works with tenants mainly by telephone and email. Their staff are not lawyers or paralegals.

Tenants facing eviction can get information about the eviction process and services that can help them. CERA’s human rights services include helping tenants who:

• are being discriminated against when looking for housing
• are being harassed
• need accommodation for a human rights reason, such as a disability
• want general information about human rights or the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario

The Landlord and Tenant Board is the tribunal that decides issues between landlords and tenants.

The Board’s website has information about housing law, forms that landlords and tenants must use, and a FAQ page that answers common questions about housing law and the Board’s processes.

You can also call the Board for information. The Board can’t give legal advice.

The Law Society of Ontario has on online Law Society Referral Service that gives you the name of a lawyer or licensed paralegal who will give free legal advice for up to 30 minutes in any area of law.

If you can’t wait for a legal representative to call you back, or if you don’t have a call-back number, email lsrs@lso.ca. Or, if you’re in crisis or in custody, call 1-855-947-5255 or 416-947-5255, Monday to Friday, between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m.

The Ontario Legal Information Centre offers a free 30-minute meeting with a lawyer to anyone in Ontario by telephone or in person at their Ottawa office in any area of law in English or French. You may have to leave a message, and a lawyer will call you back.

The Centre francophone de Toronto has a legal advice line funded by LAO for people living in the Greater Toronto Area including Toronto, Halton, Durham, Peel, and York. It gives legal information and advice in French over the telephone in the areas of:

• immigration law
• housing law
• income assistance
• employment law
• consumer rights
• human rights 

The advice line does not help with family law or criminal law matters.

The hotline can give you 30 minutes of free legal help and advice over the telephone on civil law matters, which include:

• employment
• housing
• consumer issues
• Powers of Attorney
• corporate law for charities, non-profits, and small businesses

It doesn’t help with family law or criminal law problems.

The hotline generally accepts calls Monday to Friday between 9:30 a.m. and 12 noon, and from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.