Route one: the tenancy ended properly
Section 41(1) applies where the unit "has been vacated in accordance with" a notice of termination from either side, an agreement to terminate, or an order of the Board terminating the tenancy or evicting the tenant.
In that situation the landlord "may sell, retain for the landlord's own use or otherwise dispose of property in a rental unit or the residential complex". There is no waiting period written into that subsection.
Section 41(4) then protects the landlord: no liability to any person for selling, retaining or disposing of property in accordance with the section. That protection is only available if you actually followed it.
Route two: the Sheriff enforced an eviction — 72 hours
Section 41(2) is the exception that catches people: "where an order is made to evict a tenant, the landlord shall not sell, retain or otherwise dispose of the tenant's property before 72 hours have elapsed after the enforcement of the eviction order".
The clock starts at enforcement, not at the order, and not at the termination date in the notice.
Section 41(3) adds a positive duty: the landlord "shall make an evicted tenant's property available to be retrieved at a location close to the rental unit during the prescribed hours within the 72 hours". Close to the unit — not a storage yard across the city, and not behind a locked door nobody answers.
Three days of storage is inconvenient and it is far cheaper than the alternative. Disposing of property inside the window is the kind of act that turns a completed eviction into a fresh application against the landlord.
Route three: the unit was abandoned — 30 days
Abandonment is different again, because nobody has agreed anything and no order has issued. Section 42(1) gives two ways in: obtain an order terminating the tenancy under section 79, or give notice of the intention to dispose of the property to the tenant and to the Board.
Notice to the Board as well as the tenant. A note taped to the door is not the procedure.
Section 42(2) lets the landlord dispose of "any unsafe or unhygienic items immediately" — rotting food, hazardous material. Everything else waits.
Section 42(3): the landlord may sell, keep or dispose of the remaining items once 30 days have passed from the order or the notice. And section 42(4) preserves the tenant's right to come back for it — if they notify the landlord before the 30 days are up that they intend to remove the property, they may do so within that period.
Deciding whether a unit is actually abandoned
Abandonment is a conclusion, not a feeling, and getting it wrong is expensive: treating an occupied tenancy as abandoned is an illegal recovery of possession under section 39 and very likely an entry outside sections 26 and 27.
Rent unpaid and nobody answering is not abandonment. A tenant in hospital, working away, or visiting family looks identical from the corridor.
Build the record before you act: dated attempts to make contact on each channel, notes of what neighbours or the superintendent observed, photographs of the state of the unit from a lawful entry, whether utilities are still connected, whether mail is accumulating.
When it is genuinely ambiguous, the section 79 route exists precisely so a landlord does not have to make the call alone. An order costs a filing fee; getting abandonment wrong costs considerably more.
Practical handling
Photograph and inventory everything before it moves. The dispute afterwards is almost always about what was there and what it was worth, and an inventory made at the time settles it.
Keep the disposal record with the tenancy file, not with the property. You may need it long after the items are gone.
Section 41(4)'s protection is conditional on compliance. A landlord who cannot show which route applied, or when the clock started, has forfeited the defence the section offers.