Heat: 21 degrees, October 1 to May 15
Chapter 497 of the Toronto Municipal Code is the heating bylaw. Section 497-1.2.A requires that a "minimum air temperature of 21 degrees Celsius is maintained in all areas of the dwelling unit from October 1 in each year to May 15 in the following year".
Those dates changed. They were amended on 18 December 2024 by By-law 1395-2024, which came into force on 30 April 2025. A large amount of published advice still quotes an older range, so this is a field worth checking against the Code rather than against a summary — including this one.
Two qualifiers travel with the rule. Section 497-1.2.B applies it only to a dwelling unit that is normally heated at the landlord's expense, so a unit where the tenant holds the gas account is treated differently. Section 497-1.2.C clarifies that where a unit is already at 21 degrees, the landlord is not required to operate a heating unit.
Section 497-1.3 lets an officer who receives a complaint from a tenant enter and inspect the premises at any reasonable time, and makes obstructing that inspection an offence in itself.
The penalties are not nominal. Contravention carries a fine of up to $100,000, every day is a continuing offence of up to $10,000, and there is a further special fine equal to the economic advantage obtained from the contravention.
RentSafeTO, and whether it applies to you
RentSafeTO is Toronto's apartment building standards programme. The City states it "applies to all apartment buildings with three or more storeys and ten or more units", and that owners "are required to register with the program and renew annually".
Both conditions have to be met. A four-storey building with eight units is out; a three-storey building with twelve units is in. Most small landlords — a house, a duplex, a walk-up under ten units — fall outside it entirely and are still fully covered by Chapter 629 and the Act.
For buildings inside the programme, registration is not the end of it: buildings are evaluated and scored, and the results are published. That evaluation is a public document about your building, which makes the maintenance record you keep a reputational asset rather than only a legal one.
Chapter 629 and the duties that catch people out
Chapter 629 is the property standards bylaw. Beyond the general obligation to comply, it carries specific owner's duties, including an emergency contact sign requirement at § 629-5.1 and pest control at § 629-9.
The emergency contact requirement is the one small landlords miss most often, because it is a posting obligation rather than a repair obligation — there is nothing broken to prompt it.
Chapter 629 also contains a higher-standard provision at § 629-8, which matters when a lease or another rule sets a stricter requirement than the bylaw floor.
Cooling: operate what you have
Chapter 629 § 629-38.F requires that "all air-conditioning systems shall be operated from June 1 to September 30 so as to maintain an indoor temperature of not more than 26 degrees Celsius". It was added by the same By-law 1395-2024 that moved the heat dates.
Read the verb. It obliges you to operate an air-conditioning system, not to install one. A building with no AC does not acquire a duty to fit it — but a building that has one cannot switch it off in August to save on hydro.
The heat rule and the cooling rule do not meet: heat runs to May 15 and cooling starts June 1, so a warm spring falls between them.
How a complaint actually reaches you
A Toronto tenant's fastest route is 311, not the Landlord and Tenant Board. A municipal standards officer can attend, inspect, and issue an order with its own deadline, and none of that requires a hearing or a filing fee.
That is why a Toronto heat call in January is a different problem from an ordinary repair. It is simultaneously a section 20 obligation under the Act, a vital service under section 21, and a Chapter 497 offence enforced by the City.
Practical consequence: the response time you can evidence matters more in Toronto than the eventual fix. An officer attending three days after a complaint will ask what happened in those three days, and a dated record answers it.