What is the 60-day rule, and how does it protect me?

Under section 100 of the Residential Tenancies Act, if a landlord discovers that a tenant transferred occupancy to someone else, like you, without the landlord's consent, the landlord must apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board for an eviction order within 60 days of discovering you're there. If they miss that 60-day window, you legally become a tenant yourself, with full rights under the Act, even though you started out as an unauthorized occupant.

Illegal Sublet Discovered? A Landlord Still Can't Evict You on the Spot

Q: Can a landlord kick me out on the spot because I don't have a lease with them?

No. In Ontario, it doesn't matter whether you have a written lease with the actual landlord; if you're living in the unit, only the Landlord and Tenant Board can order your eviction, and only the Sheriff can enforce that order. A landlord who changes your locks or removes your belongings without going through the LTB is committing an illegal lockout, regardless of how you came to be living there.

In Ontario, even a real landlord who just discovered an unauthorized cash sublet cannot legally change your locks or throw you out themselves. Only the Landlord and Tenant Board can order an eviction, and only the Sheriff can enforce it. If the landlord doesn't file within 60 days of discovering you, you legally become a tenant yourself.

In Ontario, even the real landlord who just discovered you’re living in their unit through an unauthorized cash sublet cannot legally change your locks or throw you out themselves, on the spot or ever. Only the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) can order an eviction, and only the Sheriff can enforce that order. If the landlord doesn’t formally apply to the LTB within 60 days of discovering you’re there, you legally become a tenant yourself, with full protection under the law.

A cash-only, no-contract arrangement is risky, but it doesn’t make you rightless

Paying a “main tenant” cash with no receipt and no written agreement is a genuinely risky way to rent a room. Without a paper trail, it’s harder to prove exactly how much you paid or when, and if the main tenant disappears or locks you out, you have less immediate evidence to fall back on. But none of that removes your basic protection against being physically thrown out by whoever discovers you living there. Ontario’s eviction protections attach to the fact that you’re actually living in the unit, not to whether you have a signed lease with the real landlord.

Only the LTB and the Sheriff can evict you, never a landlord in person

Per the LTB’s own brochure for locked-out tenants, a landlord who changes the locks or removes someone’s belongings without a Board order, while that person is still living there, is committing an illegal lockout. This is true even where the landlord is furious, even where they insist you have no right to be there, and even where they’re legally correct that the sublet was never authorized. Their legal remedy is to apply to the Board, not to act on their own.

The rule that protects you here: the 60-day clock

Ontario’s Residential Tenancies Act deals with exactly this situation under section 100: if a tenant transfers occupancy of a unit to someone else without the landlord’s consent, meaning an unauthorized sublet, the landlord can apply to the LTB for an order evicting both the original tenant and the person now living there. But per the LTB’s interpretation guideline on landlords, tenants, and occupants, that application must be made no later than 60 days after the landlord discovers the unauthorized occupancy. If the landlord misses that window, and doesn’t file in time, the unauthorized occupant becomes a tenant, with the same rights as anyone else on a lease.

That means the moment a landlord discovers the situation and starts yelling at you to leave “tonight” is actually the start of a legal clock that favours you, not a moment where you have zero rights.

What to actually say and do

Stay calm and don’t leave under verbal pressure alone. You are not required to pack up and go the same night a landlord discovers the arrangement.
Tell them plainly this is a Board matter, not something they can resolve themselves: “You’ll need to apply to the Landlord and Tenant Board. Only the Board can order an eviction, and only the Sheriff can enforce it.” Filing that application is done through Form A2, and the landlord has 60 days from discovering you to file it.
If they change the locks or remove your belongings anyway, that’s illegal. Call the police; while eviction itself is treated as a civil matter, an illegal lockout in progress is something police involvement can help resolve immediately.
File Form T2, Application about Tenant Rights, with the LTB to formally challenge an illegal lockout and ask to be let back into the unit; per the LTB’s T2 instructions, this is the correct form for exactly this situation.
Contact the Rental Housing Enforcement Unit, per Ontario’s page on rental housing offences; a compliance officer can contact the landlord directly and explain the law, and repeated violations can lead to investigation and prosecution.

Protect yourself going forward

Even in an informal cash arrangement, ask for some form of written record: a text confirming the monthly amount and due date, or an e-Transfer with a note referencing rent, rather than pure unrecorded cash. That record won’t change your legal right to not be illegally locked out, but it makes every later step, from a T2 application to simply proving how long you’ve lived somewhere, faster and easier to support.