The N4 form: Ontario's notice for unpaid rent, and the L1 that follows

What an N4 is for

The N4, Notice to End your Tenancy Early for Non-payment of Rent, is the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) form a landlord gives when a tenant hasn't paid the full rent on the day it's due. It starts the process; it doesn't evict anyone by itself. If the tenant doesn't pay or move out, the landlord applies to the LTB with an L1, and a Board member decides at a hearing.

Only rent goes on an N4. Rent is the basic rent plus anything the tenant pays you separately for services, such as parking, or a flat monthly utility charge paid to you. These don't belong on the notice:

• Utility bills the tenant pays to the utility company, or pays through you
• The last month's rent deposit
• NSF cheque charges, which can be claimed on the L1 instead
• Damage, or any other money that isn't rent

Unpaid rent is also the LTB's most common case, as the Board's own order data below shows. Checking an applicant's rent history before you sign, including whether a past landlord gave them an N4, is part of our tenant screening.

How much notice an N4 gives

For an N4 given on or after September 21, 2026, the termination date must be at least 7 days after you give it to the tenant, whatever the rental period. Don't count the day you give it. Notices given before that date needed 14 days for monthly and yearly tenancies.

Add time for delivery: 5 more days if you mail it (Xpresspost included), and 1 more business day by courier.

The LTB updated the N4 on September 21, 2026, and refuses old versions of its updated forms as of November 30, 2026. Download a fresh copy from Tribunals Ontario each time instead of reusing a saved one.

Giving the N4 to the tenant

You can give the notice in any of these ways:

• Hand it to the tenant, or to an adult in the unit
• Leave it in the tenant's mailbox, or wherever their mail is normally delivered
• Slide it under the door or through the mail slot
• Send it by courier or by mail, adding the extra days above
• Fax it to the tenant's home, or to where they carry on business

Posting it on the door of the unit doesn't count. Write down how and when you gave it: you'll need that for the Certificate of Service you file with the L1.

When the tenant pays

The N4 is void if the tenant pays all the rent on the notice, plus any rent that has come due since, before you file the L1. The tenancy then simply continues. The LTB's own example: May's rent is unpaid and the termination date is June 4. A tenant who pays on June 2 has to pay May's and June's rent to void the notice.

A partial payment doesn't void it. Record every payment, and if the tenant asks for a receipt, give one; receipts are free.

Filing the L1 application

• When: the day after the termination date at the earliest, and only while the tenant still lives in the unit. For a tenant who has moved out, the application is the L10.
• What to include: the L1, a copy of the N4 you gave, a Certificate of Service and the fee. The LTB refuses an application with any of these missing.
• Fee: $186 through the Tribunals Ontario Portal, or $201 by mail, courier or in person at ServiceOntario. LTB fees aren't refunded.
• What you can claim: the unpaid rent, NSF bank charges, an administration charge of up to $20 per NSF cheque, and the application fee.

To collect the rent without ending the tenancy, the application is the L9. You can file it the day after the rent is due, while the tenant still lives there.

At the hearing

After you file, the LTB sends you and the tenant a Notice of Hearing with the date and how the hearing will be held. Bring the N4, your proof of service, a rent ledger and a record of every payment since the notice.

• New since September 21, 2026: on applications filed on or after that date, a tenant who wants to raise other issues, such as repairs, must pay you at least half of the arrears claimed at least 7 days before the hearing, and give you and the LTB a written description of the issues. The payment goes to you, not to the LTB in trust.
• What the member can decide: an eviction, more time to pay or to move, a payment plan, or no eviction.
• Payment plans: they're set out in a written Payment Agreement. If the tenant misses a payment and agreed to that term, you can ask for an eviction order without another hearing, using the L4.

After the order

An eviction order for unpaid rent gives the tenant a deadline to pay everything owed, rent and costs, and keep the tenancy. If they neither pay nor move out, only the Court Enforcement Office (the Sheriff) can enforce the eviction. Changing the locks yourself is illegal.

A tenant who pays in full after that deadline may still be able to void the order before it's enforced, using the LTB's Tenant's Motion to Void an Eviction Order for Arrears of Rent.

How often landlords file an L1

Unpaid rent is the LTB's most common case by a wide margin. Ontario's open catalogue of LTB orders lists 51,756 files with orders issued from January to July 2026. An L1 was part of 27,858 of them, or 54%, and of 64% of the files that included a landlord application. That's roughly 4,000 L1 files a month.

By the rental unit's address, Toronto, including North York, Scarborough, Etobicoke, York and East York, accounts for 8,795 of those L1 files, about a third.

Zola's founder knows the wait behind those numbers. His mother rented the family home to the first applicant she interviewed. The tenant stopped paying after the first month, the eviction through the LTB took almost 15 months, and the house came back badly damaged.

The same order data is behind our free LTB record search: before you sign a lease, you can search an applicant's name or past address in the LTB's published orders.

Counts are Zola's, from the LTB Order Catalogue on Ontario's Data Catalogue: orders issued January to July 2026, counted October 20, 2026. The catalogue leaves out orders under a confidentiality order, and a file can include more than one application.

Where to get help

The LTB's brochure If a Tenant Does Not Pay Rent and the N4 and L1 instructions walk through each step, and the forms come only from Tribunals Ontario. For every other notice and application, see which LTB form to use.

For advice about your own case, talk to a lawyer or paralegal. Zola doesn't prepare, serve or file LTB forms; we find, screen and sign tenants.

Sources

• Landlord and Tenant Board, If a Tenant Does Not Pay Rent (updated September 21, 2026)
• Landlord and Tenant Board, N4 Notice Instructions (updated September 21, 2026)
• Landlord and Tenant Board, L1 Instructions (July 2026)
• Tribunals Ontario, Forms, filing and fees
• Tribunals Ontario, LTB operational update: legislative changes effective September 21, 2026
• Landlord and Tenant Board, How a Landlord Can End a Tenancy
• Ontario Data Catalogue, LTB Order Catalogue (orders issued January to July 2026; counted by Zola October 20, 2026)