The Deceased Tenant Playbook: Access, Belongings and When the Tenancy Ends

A tenant dying is rare enough that most landlords handle it once, badly, from memory. The rules are clear, but they sit in three different places.

Step 1: Fix the date, and find out who is acting for the estate

You need two facts before anything else: the date of death, and the name of the person with authority over the estate. That is the executor named in the will, or an administrator appointed by the court. Until one surfaces, the relative who phoned you has no legal authority over the tenant's property, however certain they sound.

Write the date of death on the file, because every clock here runs from it rather than from the day you found out. Two things not to do: change the locks, or start clearing the unit. Both turn a sad situation into a claim against you.

Step 2: Work out whether the tenancy has ended at all

Ontario. Under section 91(1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, if a tenant dies and there are no other tenants of the unit, the tenancy is deemed terminated 30 days after the death. No notice, no form, no Board application. Read the condition though: no other tenants. If a second person signed the lease, section 91 does not apply and that tenancy carries on untouched.

British Columbia. Death does not appear in section 44 of the Residential Tenancy Act, which sets out the only ways a tenancy can end. Instead, the Act defines "tenant" to include the estate of a deceased tenant. The estate is now your tenant, and it ends the tenancy the ordinary way: one clear month of notice under section 45, effective the day before rent is due.

Alberta. Same shape. The Residential Tenancies Act defines "tenant" to include an heir, assign or personal representative. For a monthly tenancy, section 8 requires notice on or before the first day of a tenancy month, effective the last day of that month, and section 10(2) pushes a late notice out to the end of the next full month. So a tenant dies on August 10, the personal representative serves notice on September 3, and the tenancy ends October 31, not September 30.

Step 3: Bill the estate, never the family

Rent runs until the tenancy ends, and it is a debt of the estate, not of the son emptying the closets. Asking him for it personally is wrong on the law and, in a small market, the fastest way to damage your name.

In Ontario the rent deposit you hold must be applied to the last rent period under section 106(10), so it usually covers the final month outright. Annual deposit interest is still owed for the period you held it, so fold that into the same calculation.

Step 4: Preserve the belongings, and learn the two exceptions

Ontario section 91(2) is blunt. Until the tenancy terminates you must preserve any property of the deceased tenant in the unit or anywhere in the complex, other than property that is unsafe or unhygienic, and you must give the executor or administrator reasonable access to remove it. Where there is no executor or administrator, that access goes to a member of the tenant's family.

After termination, section 92 lets you sell, keep or dispose of what is left, and unsafe or unhygienic property can go immediately. The catch is the window: for six months after the death, the executor, administrator or a family member can claim it. If a claim lands on something you sold, you owe the estate the proceeds less your reasonable costs of moving, storing, securing or selling, and less any arrears. If you kept it, you hand it back.

British Columbia rewrote its abandoned property rules in 2025. Store the property safely for at least 30 days, and keep a written inventory and the particulars of any disposal for two years. Property worth under $1,000 in total, or where the cost of selling would exceed the proceeds, can go early, as can anything unsanitary or unsafe. One category is carved out: medical equipment and framed photographs count as personal value property and keep the full 30 days whatever they are worth, which in a deceased tenant's unit is not a technicality.

Alberta runs section 31 of its Act against numbers set in the Ministerial Regulation: a $2,000 threshold and a 30-day storage period. Under $2,000 you may dispose. Over it, you store for 30 days, then sell by public auction or by private sale with court approval.

Step 5: Photograph the unit before anything moves

You are about to open a home full of a dead person's possessions to relatives who may not agree about who gets what. Photograph every room, closet and open drawer before the first box leaves, wide then close. Same discipline as a move-in condition inspection. Then keep an access log, one line per visit: date, time, who attended, what left the unit, and a signature.

Ontario section 92(5) lets you and the executor agree to different terms about termination and disposal. If the estate needs six weeks instead of 30 days, write it down and both sign. The kindness you extend by text message is the one that gets disputed in March.

Step 6: Call your broker before the unit sits empty

Property policies carry vacancy conditions your lease has no say over. Tell your broker the unit is empty as soon as you know, and keep the heat on. Utility accounts in the tenant's name get closed or cut for non-payment, so move them into your name the same week.

The checklist

1. Record the date of death. Every deadline runs from it.
2. Get the executor or administrator's name and contact details.
3. Confirm whether anyone else signed the lease. If someone did, stop: the tenancy continues.
4. Calculate the termination date for your province and write it on the file.
5. Photograph the unit before anything moves.
6. Put the access terms in writing, and log every visit.
7. Apply the deposit to the last rent period and settle the interest owed.
8. Notify your insurance broker and move the utility accounts.
9. Diarize the claim window: six months from death in Ontario, 30 days of storage in BC and Alberta.
10. Dispose of nothing before that window closes, except what is unsafe or unhygienic.

None of these steps are hard. They go wrong because the situation arrives once every few years, moves fast, and the person on the phone is grieving. Keep the checklist beside your emergency contact list so you never have to reconstruct the rules on a Sunday night.