Hour zero: stop the loss and write down the time
Shut the water off at the nearest isolating valve. Cut power to circuits the water has reached. Get standing water out. Then write down two times: when you were told, and when someone arrived.
Those timestamps do more work than anything else in the file. Property policies require prompt notice and reasonable steps to stop further damage, and your own wording governs what counts as reasonable. Read that clause on a quiet day.
Split the loss into three pools of money
One flood produces three separate claims, and mixing them up is how a manager pays for something that was never theirs.
- The building and its fixtures. Drywall, flooring, cabinets, mechanical. Your policy, your deductible.
- The tenant's belongings. Their contents policy, not yours. A sympathetic offer on day one can be read as an admission later. Here are the checks that make a certificate worth holding.
- The rent you stop collecting. Covered only if your policy carries rental income coverage, and only on that policy's terms.
Get the restoration estimate before you file. A loss near your deductible is a judgment call.
Photograph the unit before the dryers arrive
Restoration begins by removing the evidence: baseboards off, drywall cut to a line, carpet and underlay in a bin. Within hours the room no longer shows what happened to it. Work outward: a wide frame of each affected room, then the source, then the ceiling of whatever sits below.
Ask the contractor for the moisture readings and the daily dry log, not only the invoice. The dry log proves the unit met a dry standard on a date, and that date is what your repair obligation and any rent abatement turn on.
Write to the tenant the same day
Send a short written note: what happened, what is being done, who is attending and when, and that you will confirm dates as they firm up. Do not pass on a completion date a contractor gave you verbally in hour one. That date will move, and the tenant will hold you to the first version.
In Ontario, section 20 (1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 makes the landlord responsible for keeping the unit "in a good state of repair and fit for habitation." The obligation does not pause because the cause was a burst pipe rather than neglect. If the tenant is living through the work, record which rooms are out of use and for how long. Loss of use is the raw material of an abatement claim.
The gate: does the work need the unit empty, and for how many days
This question decides which rulebook you are in. Ask the restoration contractor two things in writing: can the unit be occupied during the work, and how many days of vacancy does the work require.
British Columbia's Policy Guideline 2B is blunt about where that lands. If the work requiring vacancy can be completed in 45 days or less, and the tenant is willing to make other living arrangements and give access, the guideline says the tenancy agreement should not need to end to achieve the vacancy. Ontario draws the same line from the other direction: a notice under section 50 (1) (c) reaches only repairs so extensive that they require both a building permit and vacant possession. Drying a unit and replacing two feet of drywall is neither.
So the default is the opposite of what panic suggests: keep the tenancy, move the people out temporarily by agreement, repair, move them back, and keep the accommodation receipts.
If the tenancy has to end, price the route first
In Ontario that is an N13 under section 50: at least 120 days notice, ending at the end of a rental period or term, and accompanied by a report from a qualified person stating that the work requires vacant possession. Without that report the notice is void. Section 54 compensation is three months rent in a complex of five or more units and one month where there are fewer, but none is owed where the repair was ordered under the authority of that Act or any other Act. A tenant who gives written notice before vacating gets first refusal under section 53, and a growing list of cities adds a municipal renoviction licence on top.
In British Columbia you cannot serve a notice. You apply to the Residential Tenancy Branch under section 49.2, and an arbitrator has to be satisfied that the work needs the unit vacant and that ending the tenancy is the only reasonable way to get that vacancy. Such an order cannot end the tenancy earlier than four months after the day it was made. First refusal runs on form RTB-35, delivered at least 45 days before the work finishes.
If the unit is gone, that is frustration, not eviction
A unit that cannot be repaired is a different legal event. BC Policy Guideline 34 sets the test: a contract is frustrated where, without the fault of either party, an unforeseeable event has so radically changed the circumstances that performance as originally intended is impossible. That is a high test, and mere hardship is not enough while the contract could still be fulfilled. Ontario reaches the same doctrine through section 19.
Guideline 34 works the money through on a mid month event: the landlord keeps rent for the period up to the date of frustration, and the tenant is entitled to restitution of rent paid for the period after. A flood severe enough to end a tenancy also ends your claim on the rest of that month.
The file that settles it later
Collect these while the trucks are still on site, because nobody reconstructs it in month four.
- When you were notified, and when someone attended
- The source of the loss, and who shut it off
- Photographs of each affected room, taken before mitigation started
- Moisture readings and the daily dry log, with the date the unit met a dry standard
- The contractor's written opinion on occupancy and days of vacancy required
- Your note to the tenant, plus every revised date you sent after it
- The claim number, the adjuster's name, and the date you gave notice
- Rent charged, rent abated, and the dates each applies to
- Receipts for any accommodation you paid for
The water is not usually what costs a landlord money. The avoidable cost is a date promised too early, a photograph never taken, and a tenancy ended down a route that was never needed.