How to Fill Out and Serve the N12 Form: Grounds and Compensation

To fill out and serve an N12 form in Ontario, download the current version from the Landlord and Tenant Board, identify every tenant on the lease, check the reason that matches your situation, set a termination date at least 60 days out that lands on the last day of a rental period (and no earlier than the end of a fixed-term lease), pay the tenant one month’s rent in compensation on or before that date, and deliver the notice using one of the methods the LTB recognizes. The notice on its own does not evict anyone. If the tenant stays, you have to file an L2 application and win an eviction order at a hearing.

Confirm You Actually Have Grounds for an N12

The N12 exists for two situations under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, and you need to know which one applies before you fill anything in.

Under section 48, you can serve an N12 if you genuinely need the unit for yourself, your spouse, a child or parent of you or your spouse, or a caregiver who will provide care to any of those people and live in the same building or complex. Under section 49, if you have signed an agreement of purchase and sale for a residential complex of no more than three units, you can serve the notice on behalf of the purchaser for the same list of people. The purchaser has to ask you to serve it, and you should keep that request in writing.¹

Whoever is named on the form must intend to move in and live there for at least one year, in good faith.² Good faith means a genuine, settled intention to occupy, not a plan to re-rent the unit at a higher price after the tenant leaves.¹

Filling Out the Form

Download the current N12 from the LTB’s forms page at tribunalsontario.ca.³ It is a fillable PDF. Open it in Adobe Reader rather than a browser, because some browsers block the fillable fields or prevent saving.

Identifying the Parties and Unit

Enter the landlord’s full legal name and the name of every tenant on the lease. Leaving a tenant off can be treated as a technical defect that invalidates the notice. Include the complete rental address with unit number and postal code.

Choosing the Reason

The form gives you two reasons. Check Reason 1 if you or a member of your family will move in. Check Reason 2 if a purchaser or a purchaser’s family member will move in. Then check the specific box identifying who that person is: yourself, your spouse, your child, your parent, your spouse’s child, your spouse’s parent, or a caregiver.² One notice, one intended occupant.

Setting the Termination Date

Three rules govern the date. Break any one of them and the notice fails.

The date must be at least 60 full days after you give the notice to the tenant. Count from the date of service, not the date you sign or mail.
The date must be the last day of a rental period. If rent is due on the first of the month, the termination date has to fall on the last day of a month.
If the tenancy is on a fixed-term lease, the date cannot come before the last day of that term.

A wrong termination date is the most common reason an N12 is thrown out at a hearing.²

Paying the Required Compensation

Section 48.1 of the RTA requires you to pay the tenant an amount equal to one month’s rent, or offer them another rental unit that they find acceptable.¹ The payment has to be made on or before the termination date on the notice. Miss that deadline and the LTB will almost certainly refuse to grant an eviction order.

Use a method that leaves a record: bank transfer, certified cheque, or e-transfer with a confirmation email. Cash with no receipt is hard to prove later. If you are offering a replacement unit instead of money, get the tenant’s acceptance in writing so there is no dispute about whether they agreed.

Serving the Notice on the Tenant

The 60-day clock only starts when the notice is properly served. The LTB accepts several methods, and the method affects when service is considered complete:

Hand delivery to the tenant. Service is immediate.
Handing the notice to an adult at the rental unit if the tenant is not home.
Placing it in the tenant’s mailbox or usual mail delivery point.
Sliding it under the door or through a mail slot, as long as the tenant still occupies the unit.
Regular mail. The LTB treats the notice as received five days after mailing, so add those five days to your 60-day calculation.
Email, but only if the tenant has agreed in writing to receive documents that way, either through the standard lease or by signing the LTB’s Consent to Service by Email form.

⁴

Write down the date, time, and method of service. If you slide it under the door, take a timestamped photo. If the tenant later says they never got it, those details are what the adjudicator will look at.

What Happens After You Serve It

An N12 is not a self-executing eviction. If the tenant does not agree with the notice, they do not have to move. They can stay, keep paying rent, and wait for a hearing.² A tenant who does want to leave can move out earlier than the date on the N12 by giving you at least 10 days’ written notice on Form N9.

If the tenant stays past the termination date, your next step is Form L2, Application to End a Tenancy and Evict a Tenant. You can file the L2 as soon as the N12 is served, and you must file it no later than 30 days after the termination date on the notice. Miss that 30-day window and you lose the right to enforce the notice; you would have to start over with a fresh N12.⁵

The filing fee is $201 on paper or $186 through the Tribunals Ontario Portal, and it is non-refundable.³ With the L2, you also have to submit a declaration or affidavit from the person who intends to move in, confirming they genuinely intend to occupy the unit for at least one year. A declaration is signed; an affidavit is sworn before a Commissioner of Oaths. Either satisfies the requirement. Filing without it will delay your application.

At the hearing, you carry the burden of proving the intended occupant genuinely intends to live in the unit. The tenant can challenge your good faith and present their own evidence, such as an existing rental listing for the same unit at a higher price.

What Bad Faith Costs You

If the named person never moves in, or moves out quickly and the unit is re-rented, the former tenant can file a T5 application alleging the notice was given in bad faith. The RTA presumes bad faith if, within one year after the tenant leaves, you advertise the unit for rent, rent it to someone new, list it for sale, demolish it, or convert it to non-residential use. Once one of those triggers is shown, the burden shifts to you to prove the notice was given in good faith.⁶ Remedies can include up to 12 months of rent as general compensation, the difference between the old and new rent for a year, moving and storage costs, and an administrative fine of up to $35,000.⁷ Serve the N12 only when the occupancy is real.

1
Ontario.ca. Residential Tenancies Act, 2006
2
Tribunals Ontario. Form N12 Notice to End your Tenancy
3
Tribunals Ontario. Forms, Filing and Fees
4
Tribunals Ontario. How to Serve a Landlord or Tenant with Documents
5
Tribunals Ontario. Application to End a Tenancy and Evict a Tenant or Collect Money Form L2
6
Tribunals Ontario. Interpretation Guideline 12 – Eviction for Personal Use, Demolition, Repairs and Conversion
7
Tribunals Ontario. Form T5 Landlord Gave a Notice of Termination in Bad Faith