A tenant tells you they are leaving. Before that date goes near a listing, a contractor booking or a new lease, confirm it is a date the rules allow. Notice periods in most provinces are a count of days plus a rule about which day the tenancy may end on, and the second rule usually pushes the date later than the tenant expected.
Here is the Ontario version of that gap. A month-to-month tenant pays rent on the first and hands you notice on August 15. Sixty days lands on October 14. But the termination date has to be the last day of a rental month, so the earliest date the tenant can name is October 31. Seventy-seven days, not sixty. Promise that unit to someone for October 15 and you have built a two-week overlap into your calendar.
Step 1: Confirm the notice is written and complete
A hallway conversation, a voicemail or a text saying "we are thinking of moving in the fall" is intent, not notice. Every province wants it in writing, with a short list of what has to be on it.
- Ontario wants the Landlord and Tenant Board's Form N9, Tenant's Notice to End the Tenancy.
- British Columbia lets a tenant write their own letter, as long as it carries the tenant's name, the date of the letter, the unit address, the date they plan to leave, and their signature.
- Alberta requires the address of the rental premises, the date the tenancy will end, and the signature of the person giving notice.
Reply in writing the same day, confirming what you received and the date you have calculated. That one reply catches nearly every disagreement about a move-out date while there is time to fix it.
Step 2: Write down the tenancy type and the rental period
Two facts decide everything after this: whether the tenancy is fixed term or periodic, and which day the rental period ends on. Pull the lease rather than trusting your memory of it. The period runs from the day rent is due, so rent due on the first means periods end on the last day of the month. A tenancy that started mid-month may run the fifteenth to the fourteenth, which shifts every calculation below.
Step 3: Find the earliest date the tenancy can end
Ontario
The LTB brochure How a Tenant Can End Their Tenancy sets out three cases. On a fixed term, at least 60 days notice before the end of the lease, and the termination date cannot fall before the last day of the term. On a monthly tenancy with no fixed term, at least 60 days, ending on the last day of a rental month. On a weekly or daily tenancy, at least 28 days, ending on the last day of a rental week.
Count it the way the LTB counts it. Do not count the day the notice was delivered. Do count the termination date. If the tenant mailed it rather than handing it over, add five days: 65 rather than 60, or 33 rather than 28.
Two dates a year are exceptions. A tenant moving at the end of February can give less than 60 days if the notice arrives by January 1, and one moving at the end of March can do the same with notice by February 1. The termination date is unchanged.
British Columbia
Under section 45 of the Residential Tenancy Act, a tenant's notice has to be received at least one month before the effective date, and before the day rent is due. The Residential Tenancy Branch is blunt about the distinction: this is not 30 days notice, it is a complete rental month. A fixed term cannot end early unless both parties sign a Mutual Agreement to End Tenancy, an arbitrator orders it, or a narrow exception applies, such as a tenant fleeing family or household violence.
British Columbia does fix a bad date for you. Section 53 of the Act deems a notice with an effective date that is too early to take effect on the earliest date that does comply. Useful, but do not leave the correction in your head. Put it in your written confirmation, because the tenant is still working from the wrong date.
Alberta
A fixed term in Alberta ends on the date in the agreement with no notice from either side, so there may be nothing to verify. Periodic tenancies are where the arithmetic lives. A monthly tenant gives one month of notice, and a late notice does not fail, it slides: the tenancy ends on the last day of the next complete tenancy month. Alberta's own example is a tenant on a first-to-last-day monthly tenancy who gives notice on June 2 to end on June 30. The tenancy ends July 31 instead. Weekly tenancies take one week of notice, and yearly tenancies take 60 days.
Quebec
Quebec runs on a different mechanism: a lease renews by operation of law on the same terms unless the tenant sends a notice of non-renewal inside the time limits set for their lease type. The Tribunal administratif du logement publishes the model notices. Check the deadline against your own lease first.
Step 4: Decide what to do with a short notice
You have two honest options, and picking one is a business decision.
- Hold the corrected date. The tenancy runs to the date the rules produce, and the rent runs with it. Tell the tenant in writing now, not in the last week.
- Agree to the earlier date. If the unit will re-let quickly, put the agreement in writing and get it signed: Ontario has Form N11, Agreement to End the Tenancy, British Columbia has the Mutual Agreement to End Tenancy, and Alberta treats it as an agreed early termination.
What you should not do is accept an early date by saying nothing, or by taking the keys and hoping. An agreement that exists only as a shrug leaves you with no rent and no clean answer about who held the unit in the gap.
Step 5: Market from the confirmed date, not the notice date
The confirmed date goes in one place, and everything else reads from it: the listing availability date, the showing schedule, the turnover work order, and the start date you will sign on the next lease. Keep your usual turnover buffer, because that date is when possession ends, not when the unit is rentable.
The whole check takes ten minutes and ends with one written line back to the tenant naming the date. That line is the difference between a turnover you scheduled and one that schedules you.