$200M+ of unpaid rent

👩🏻 Top insight to share with you

My co-founder Vishal found the data behind the 40,844 Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB) orders released two weeks ago HIGHLY interesting.

49% of all of these orders were for non-payment of rent (L1).

But, the number that jumped out at me when he shared the analysis with me was the ~$200,000,000 (that’s $200 million) of unpaid rent listed in the orders across the first 5 months of 2026.

I was trying to grasp how big $200M+ was. $200M in $100 bills weighs roughly 4,400 lbs (2,000 kg). Claude told me that’s heavier than a pickup truck.

And if these bills were stacked, that's a tower over 200 metres tall…like taller than most Toronto condos. Fun fact I learned: it looks like the average high-rise Toronto condo stands at 35 - 45 storeys tall, or 110 to 145 metres.

Learning new insights on a Sunday morning over here…yes sometimes I just search up very random things.

OK, now back to the $200M. The nuance to this number is that it only shows the amount at the time the Landlord and Tenant went to the hearing. We know that when you get to the hearing, it still takes anywhere from 2 weeks to 3 months (depending on the city) for an actual Sheriff to evict a non-paying tenant.

If the LTB can hear a case for L1/L2 on average in 52.4 days (within months), then the average unpaid rent case is ~ $13,500+ at this point.

There is still a potential up to 3 months to wait for the Sheriff. That leaves a landlord in ~5 months of unpaid rent!!!

Where are the cases of unpaid rent most likely?

Vishal had built a heat map for all of the geographical postal codes in Ontario so you can take a look at your own rental areas.

In the first 5 months of 2026, it looks like Pickering’s postal code of L1X took the lead at 50.6 unpaid rent orders per 1,000 renter households.

Cities Pickering, Barrie, Mississauga, Brampton, Vaughan were among the top 10. You can do a postal code search across the 2026 LTB orders yourself too.

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Is the LTB improving for landlords and tenants?

According to the LTB’s own stats, this is the breakdown of Average Days to First Hearing report, L1/L2 now sits at 52.4 days (so just under 2 months) whereas on average, the tenant applications sit at 162.9 days (~5 months).

What we know is first hearing doesn’t always mean you get a resolution. Sometimes, you get squeezed into ‘Hearing Blocks’ that are too full and your case gets adjourned. This means you have to wait for the next hearing date, which could be a couple months out.

But if you went on a good day and you get your case heard, that’s a win.

I remember 4 years ago, I scoured the web to learn more about my adjudicator to understand how many days it took them to issue an order by manually looking at cases one by one.

Now, we have more complete data to work with!

So if you’re still waiting for an order after going to the Board, you can search the adjudicator by name and find their average days to issuance of the order.

What’s my take?

$200M+ of unpaid rent a lot in 5 months?

That is unacceptable. It hurts both the responsible tenants and the landlords.

Overall, I genuinely believe that the government is trying to do more for both landlords and tenants. I see some of the behind-the-scenes at work.

While there could always be more to be done, that’s the case for any organization. Often, I’d get messages like “the government only cares about tenants” or “the government only cares about making landlords money”.

If they do nothing, they get beaten up. If they do something, they get beaten up. It doesn’t look easy being in government.

🤷🏻‍♀️

What would help from the public, i.e. you and me, is to suggest solutions that make sense for all parties involved.

When we only think about ourselves as the beneficiaries of our solutions, our voices will just be noise.

Even better when you can put it into action and SHOW them it can work. So, if you’ve got ideas, I’m always open for ideas and feedback!

Any thoughts on your side? Reply to this email and let me know!

Otherwise, have a great rest of the weekend!

Weiting Bollu
Mom, Rental Housing Provider, Rental Housing Advocate, Educator, and Openroom Co-Founder & CEO

Openroom collects public tenancy records and connects them to the broader financial credit system to help you make informed decisions on who to rent from and rent to.

We enable you to screen tenants or future landlords, help you report rental debt, give rewards to great residents, or bundle it all into BureauEdge.

We also educate about rental housing and we advocate for a more transparent and connected rental ecosystem to support both responsible housing providers and residents. Send us an opinion piece to [email protected].