Charge rent one period at a time
Rent under the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 is charged for a rental period - usually one month. Add each period between the arrears start date and the arrears end date as a separate ledger row. Do not compound; do not add interest to unpaid rent unless a Landlord and Tenant Board order later awards it.
Handle partial periods deliberately
If the arrears period ends part-way through a month, decide whether to charge the full period (the default at the LTB for most L1 applications) or to prorate by days in the period. Whichever choice you make, apply it consistently so the ledger totals reconcile.
Rent deposit and deposit interest - when they are credited
A last-month's-rent deposit is not a payment against ongoing arrears. Under RTA s. 106(10), the deposit is generally applied to the last rental period before the tenancy ends. It becomes a credit against the arrears calculation when it is applied at the end of the tenancy or when the Board deducts it in a termination-based order under s. 87(4). In a stand-alone L9 arrears application where the tenancy is continuing, the deposit is generally not deducted; in an L1 (arrears + termination) or an L10 order in respect of a former tenant, it typically is.
Interest on the deposit, at the rent-increase guideline for the year, is owed to the tenant under s. 106(3) and is generally credited at the same time as the deposit itself. The LTB's Interpretation Guideline 11 is guidance only - the actual outcome depends on the application, the tenancy status, the order, and the facts of the case.
Apply tenant payments in date order
Every payment the tenant made during the arrears period reduces the running balance from the date of payment. Enter payments in date order to keep the ledger auditable. Do not lump partial payments together at the end of the period - the LTB expects a chronological record.
Compensation is a separate row after termination
Once the tenancy is terminated, the landlord charges daily compensation instead of rent for the period between termination and vacant possession. Compensation runs in its own row on the ledger, strictly after the last rent period, so no day is charged twice. Count both the first and the last compensation day.
Not everything you are owed is rent
Rent is what the tenancy agreement requires the tenant to pay for the rental period. Other amounts are treated separately, and some are not recoverable at the Board at all. Utilities can only be charged as rent where the agreement makes them part of the rent; where they are billed separately, they are generally not arrears of rent. NSF charges are limited by the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 and its regulation and are not simply whatever the bank charged. Damage, cleaning and key replacement are separate claims with their own application routes and their own evidentiary requirements. Putting these amounts into the rent column is one of the fastest ways to have a ledger disbelieved.
Overpayments, credits and rent that was never lawfully charged
A ledger runs in both directions. If the tenant paid more than the rent due in a period, the surplus is a credit that carries forward and reduces later arrears - it is not the landlord's to keep against a future claim. The same is true of an amount collected as a deposit beyond what the Act permits, and of rent charged above a lawfully increased amount: where the increase was not properly given, the higher figure may not be collectible, and the difference may have to be credited back. If a credit exists, show it as its own dated line rather than quietly reducing a rent charge, so the arithmetic remains auditable.
Evidence the Board expects behind the numbers
A ledger is an assertion; the evidence is what makes it persuasive. Be ready to produce the tenancy agreement showing the lawful rent and the due date, any notices of rent increase relied on, the deposit receipt, the bank or e-transfer records for every payment credited, and the notice of termination together with proof of how and when it was served. Where the arrears total in your application and the total in your ledger differ - because rent kept accruing after filing - explain the difference rather than leaving the hearing to discover it.
Verification workflow before you file or serve
- Confirm the lawful monthly rent and the due day from the agreement and any valid increase notices, not from what the tenant has been paying.
- List every rental period in the arrears window as its own row, and decide once whether a partial final period is charged in full or prorated.
- Enter every payment received, in date order, and reconcile the payment total against your bank records.
- Decide the deposit treatment deliberately: whether this is a continuing tenancy or a termination-based application changes whether the deposit and its interest are credited.
- Check that no day is charged both as rent and as post-termination compensation, and that compensation starts only after the termination date.
- Separate anything that is not rent into its own line, and remove anything you cannot support with a document.
- Total the ledger by hand and reconcile it to the figure in the application before it is served.
Filing fees and other ordered amounts
The LTB filing fee is added as a separate line when the landlord pays it. Other amounts the Board orders (for example, NSF fees or substantial-interference remedies) are also separate ledger lines, not part of the rent total.
Daily compensation after termination: build the timeline first
Most disputes about post-termination compensation are really disputes about dates. Work through the four blocks below in order and record the evidence for each boundary. If two blocks touch on the same calendar day, one of them is wrong: a single day is either a rental day or a compensation day, never both.
| Block | What it covers | What fixes its boundary |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Tenancy running | Rent under the tenancy agreement, charged for each rental period as it falls due | The agreement itself, plus any lawful rent change |
| 2. Effective termination | The single date on which the tenancy ends | A valid notice with an effective date, a Board order, or a written agreement to end the tenancy |
| 3. Use or occupation afterwards | Compensation for continued actual use or occupation of the unit after block 2 | Evidence of use day by day, not the date someone planned to leave |
| 4. Last actual day | The final compensable day | Keys returned, unit emptied, possession recovered on enforcement, or a documented last day of use |
The boundary between blocks 1 and 2 is legal; the boundary between blocks 3 and 4 is factual. Confusing the two is how ledgers end up charging rent and compensation for the same week.
Verify the termination date: a fixed term ending is not automatically an ending
A common assumption is that the tenancy ends by itself on the last day of a fixed term, so everything after that date must be compensation. The Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 does not work that way. Section 38 addresses what happens when a fixed term expires and the tenant remains without a new agreement: the tenancy can be deemed to continue on a periodic basis rather than simply stopping. Read the section before treating an expiry date as a termination date.
Practically, block 2 needs a document behind it. If you cannot point to a notice with an effective date, an order, or a written agreement, you probably still have a running tenancy, and the money owed is rent claimed as arrears, not compensation.
How the calculator treats compensation days and the daily figure
The calculator charges compensation in its own block, strictly after the last rent period, so no day appears in both. Both the first and the last compensation day are counted, which is an inclusive day count: 1 May to 10 May is ten days, not nine. If the last day is the day possession was recovered or the keys were returned, decide once whether that day is charged, and say so on the ledger.
The official sources cited on this page do not prescribe a single monthly-to-daily conversion for every file. Monthly rent x 12 / 365 is therefore best described on the face of your ledger as an annualized arithmetic estimate, not a statutory formula. Other approaches exist, including dividing by the actual number of days in the specific month, which produces a different daily figure in February than in July.
- Say which convention you used, in one line, immediately beside the number. An unexplained daily rate invites the other side to propose their own.
- State your rounding rule. Rounding the daily rate to the cent before multiplying, and rounding the product to the cent afterwards, is defensible as long as it is disclosed and used consistently.
- Keep the multiplication visible: rate, number of days, product. A reader who disagrees with the rate can then still verify the day count.
- Where the convention could matter, show both computations rather than burying the choice.
Worked figure. Fictional teaching example - not legal authority. Rent is $1,825 per month, and the annualized conversion is $1,825 × 12 = $21,900, so $21,900 ÷ 365 = $60.00 per day. Ten inclusive days of documented use from 1 May to 10 May is 10 × $60.00 = $600.00, charged in the compensation block only, with rent charged to 30 April in the rent block.
Which LTB application and order context applies
Board applications are not interchangeable, and choosing the wrong one changes both the form and what can be claimed on it.
| Application | Typically used when | Practical effect on the ledger |
|---|---|---|
| L1 | The tenant is still in the unit and the landlord seeks termination for arrears together with the money owed | The claim is framed around rent arrears while the tenancy is being ended |
| L9 | The tenancy is continuing and the landlord seeks only an order for arrears, without termination | Rent, not post-termination compensation, is what is in issue |
| L10 | The person has already moved out and the landlord seeks money from a former tenant | Read the Board's L10 instructions: this route is generally available within one year after the tenant moved out |
Check the current instructions for the form you intend to file rather than relying on a summary. The Board's L10 instructions set out both the one-year framing and what a former tenant can be asked to pay.
Deposits, re-renting and double recovery
Two adjustments are frequently applied in the wrong block.
- Last month's rent deposit. A rent deposit is applied to the last rental period of the tenancy. It is not ordinarily deducted in an order for arrears while the tenancy is still continuing, which is the usual L9 situation.
- Re-renting and mitigation. Questions about efforts to re-rent arise in the distinct context of a claim under section 88 of the Act, not as a general discount on every compensation figure.
- No double recovery. Once a new tenant is paying for the unit for a given day, the same day cannot also be charged to the former tenant. Mark the changeover date in the timeline and stop the compensation block there.
Common mistakes in an arrears and compensation ledger
- Charging rent and daily compensation for the same calendar day, usually because the termination date was never fixed by a document.
- Treating the last day of a fixed term as a termination date without reading section 38.
- Deducting the rent deposit in a continuing-tenancy arrears application where it is generally not deducted.
- Putting utilities, NSF charges or damage into the rent column instead of their own lines with their own application routes.
- Quoting a daily figure without saying which conversion and rounding rule produced it.
- Continuing to charge the former tenant for days that a new tenant is already paying for.
What this guide cannot determine
- Whether your tenancy was validly terminated, and on what date.
- Whether compensation is owed at all on your facts, or in what amount.
- Whether a particular day counts as actual use or occupation. That is a factual finding on evidence.
- Which application you should file, whether you are within any applicable time period, or how a limitation or procedural rule applies to you.
- What daily conversion an adjudicator will accept, or how a deposit, abatement, damage claim or set-off will be treated.
Legal recoverability is a separate question from arithmetic. A correctly computed daily figure is not an adjudicated amount, and nothing here is legal advice.
Practical next steps
Build the ledger with the Ontario Rent Arrears Calculator, print it, and file it with the supporting documents behind each line. Assemble the documents that fix the termination date before charging a single compensation day, write the day-by-day log of actual use while the facts are fresh, and if a rent increase is in issue, confirm the lawful rent with the Ontario Rent Increase Calculator and the Ontario rent-increase rules guide. Whether a particular amount is legally recoverable is a question for the Board on the evidence, and for advice from a lawyer or licensed paralegal, not for the arithmetic.
Worked example
Facts. Rent of $2,200 per month due on the first. The tenant paid nothing from 1 January 2026 to 30 April 2026 (four months). The landlord holds a last-month's rent deposit of $2,200 with $55 in accrued interest owed to the tenant. The tenancy has been terminated by a valid notice effective 30 April 2026.
Rent charged. Four periods × $2,200 = $8,800.
Deposit credit. Because the tenancy is ending and a Board order is expected to deduct the deposit under RTA s. 87(4), the deposit of $2,200 plus $55 of interest ($2,255 total) is applied as an end-of-tenancy credit dated at the arrears end date. If instead this were a stand-alone L9 calculation with the tenancy continuing, the deposit would generally not be deducted and the credit would be $0.
Balance before LTB filing fee. $8,800 − $2,255 = $6,545.
Related calculators
Official sources
Revision note
Reviewed on 21 August 2026 against the consolidated Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 on Ontario's e-Laws service and the Landlord and Tenant Board's published rules, forms and Interpretation Guideline 11. The sections on evidence, on charges that are not rent, on overpayments and credits, and the verification workflow were added at that review. At the same review the separate guide on daily compensation after termination of a tenancy was consolidated into this page, so the timeline, termination-date verification, inclusive-day treatment, application and double-recovery material now sits beside the arrears ledger it belongs to. The worked example and the published date are unchanged.
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