3. Find out how much your rent will be if you stay

If your lease was for one year and your rent hasn’t gone up during that time, then it is probably legal for your landlord to increase your rent after the end of the lease. This is true whether you sign a new fixed-term lease or you stay as a monthly tenant.

Your landlord must give you at least 90 days’ notice of any rent increase. And if you want to move out, you must give your landlord at least 60 days’ notice. This means that you should have at least 30 days to decide if you want to stay and pay the new rent.

Before you decide, you should check whether the rent increase is legal. It might not be legal if:

• your landlord didn’t give you at least 90 days’ notice in writing
• the increase is happening less than 12 months after the previous increase, or
• the increase is more than the provincial guideline for that year

If the rent increase is not legal, you can stay and challenge it even if you sign a new lease with the higher rent. It’s a good idea to get legal help before you sign to make sure.

Rent freeze in 2021

The government has announced that the guideline for the year 2021 will be zero percent. This means that your landlord cannot raise your rent at all from January 1, 2021 to December 31, 2021 without approval from the Landlord and Tenant Board.

This rent freeze will also apply to newer units that are normally not covered by the guideline.

Your landlord is allowed to give you a rent increase notice in 2021 but the increase cannot start before January 1, 2022.