Brampton’s Residential Rental Licensing (RRL) pilot program, designed to curb illegal rentals, has been few through a few iterations since its initial launch in January 2024, and on Thursday, the City announced that it is waiving the program’s licence application fee for the remainder of 2025.
Prior to this announcement, the pilot required landlords in wards 1, 3, 4, 5, and 7 who own between one and four rental units to register with the city and obtain a licence at a $300 annual charge. There was already a full fee waiver in effect for the length of the pilot for any applications filed prior to June 30, 2024, as well as a 50% discount for any applications filed between July 1 to September 30, 2024.
With this latest update, the hope is to simplify the application progress, while encouraging greater participation from landlords and ensuring safer living conditions for Brampton’s large population of renters, according to a press release from the City.
“For those who purchased licences prior to February 5, 2025, consideration will be given depending on the next phase of the program,” the release also says.
According to figures put out by the City, the RLL program has successfully licensed 3,227 units across the aforementioned wards to date, and in doing so, has ensured that those units comply with safety standards. This is up from around 2,200 licenses, which is the figure the City cited in September. At that time, it also specified that more than 4,700 inspections had been conducted through the RLL program, and that 611 administrative penalties had been issued, resulting in fines of more than $83,500.
Those familiar with Brampton’s RLL pilot might remember that the program was paused a matter of weeks after its initial launch following outcry from landlords. Many claimed that not enough information had been provided to the public about the program leading up to its launch, and that it puts an undue financial burden on good actors as well as bad.
Although the City opted to put the pilot on ice in response to these kinds of concerns, Brampton Mayor Patrick Brown continued to emphasize the need for a program that requires all basement suites, garden suites, and lodging homes in the city to be legitimized and monitored. He has said that there are as many as 100,000 people living in illegal rental units across the city, and that there’s no topic the City gets more complaints about than illegal suites.
The RLL program was eventually relaunched in April 2024 with a number of refinements, including updates to the application process to make it faster and simpler for landlords to onboard. After the relaunch, landlords were no longer required to provide proof of ownership, a criminal record check, detailed parking, storage, and floor plans, or proof of electrical and gas inspections when registering their units.
And then in July 2024, the City came out with an updated fee structure to “ensure compliance” with the program. Non-compliant landlords now face a $600 fine for first offences, a $900 fine for second offences, and a $1,200 fine for third and subsequent offences.
