Property management in Ottawa, Ontario

Ottawa's Rental Housing Property Management by-law reaches every landlord in the city, not just apartment buildings — it defines a landlord as the owner of any rental unit under the Residential Tenancies Act. You have 24 hours to respond to an urgent tenant service request, meaning a loss of vital services, a security problem, a failure of accessibility equipment, or anything that could reasonably make the unit uninhabitable. You also have to give tenants written contact details and instructions for raising an issue, following it up, and reporting it to the City if it goes unresolved, and to keep a tenant support registry for anyone who tells you they would need help during an evacuation or an outage. Buildings of three or more storeys or ten or more units need a capital maintenance plan covering things like the roof, elevators, balconies and cladding — and a new owner has three months from the transfer of title to produce one.

Source: City of Ottawa — Rental Housing Property Management (By-law No. 2020-255). Rules change — check the city's own page before you rely on this.