The municipal by-laws that decide what you can do with a property in the GTA: licensing, trees, short-term rentals, property standards orders and vacancy taxes, quoted from each municipality with dates.
Heritage designation is the most misunderstood constraint in Toronto luxury real estate. Here is exactly what Part IV and Part V do, what is exempt, and why buyers in Rosedale and Baby Point should treat it as an asset.
A ravine lot is the most valuable land in Toronto and the most regulated. Two separate authorities control what you can do with it, permits come before your building permit, and penalties run to $100,000 per tree.
O. Reg. 143/24 amended the designation so that every single-tier and upper-tier Ontario municipality may pass a vacancy tax by-law. Toronto at 3%, Ottawa on a graduated 1% to 5% scale, Hamilton at 1% from 2025, and Peel paused since 2023. The declaration deadlines, the deemed-vacant rule, and what the City says about who declares on a sale.
Under section 15.2(4) of the Building Code Act a registered property standards order means a later purchaser is deemed to have been served with it. The 14-day appeal deadline, the deemed confirmation that follows missing it, the municipal lien with priority status, the $50,000 to $1,500,000 penalty ladder, and why Toronto has no online way to look an order up.
O. Reg. 169/03 sets Ontario’s enforceable lead standard at 0.010 mg/L; Health Canada’s maximum acceptable concentration, lowered in March 2019, is 0.005 mg/L. How to find out whether a Toronto house has a lead service line, who pays for which portion, the free testing and filter programmes, and the reason replacing only half the pipe can make things worse.
A permit is required before injuring or destroying any Toronto tree 30 centimetres or more in diameter at 1.4 metres. Section 813-29 provides a minimum fine of $500 and a maximum of $100,000 per tree, plus a separate $100,000 special fine. The permit fees, the two-year replanting condition, $583 cash in lieu, and why a mature tree can stop a garden suite.
Toronto, Mississauga, Brampton, Oakville, Burlington and Vaughan all regulate short-term rentals, all require a licence or registration, and all restrict it to a principal residence. The fees, the annual caps — and the two municipalities with no annual cap at all. Every figure from the municipality’s own by-law or page.
Multi-tenant houses have been permitted across all of Toronto since 31 March 2024, with mandatory annual licensing under Chapter 575. The fees, the room caps that are set by zoning rather than the by-law and differ by district, the $100,000 penalties and $10,000-a-day continuing offence, the advertising reverse onus, and the daily-refreshed open dataset a buyer can check.
