How do seasonal campsite agreements work when you buy a campground in Ontario?

If the campground you are buying has seasonal campsite agreements, you need to know what they commit you to, and in Ontario a key statute to read them against is the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006. This page covers Ontario only. Whether that Act reaches a given site depends on how the site is actually used and what has been agreed, so a buyer should read the agreements and the history behind them, not only the summary a seller provides. Ask for the signed agreement for each site, the dates it began, and any correspondence about renewal, rent or ending the stay. Gaps in that file are worth raising with your lawyer before you commit to a closing date. For the wider checklist of buying a park, see buying a campground and RV park in Canada.

The exemption for seasonal and temporary stays

Section 5 of the Act lists situations where the Act does not apply. Paragraph (a) covers living accommodation intended to be provided to the travelling or vacationing public, or occupied for a seasonal or temporary period, in a hotel, motel, resort, lodge, tourist camp, cottage or cabin establishment, inn, campground, trailer park, tourist home, bed and breakfast vacation establishment or vacation home. Living accommodation in a campground that is occupied for a season therefore falls within the wording. The exemption turns on the accommodation and how it is occupied, so check that each agreement matches what the park actually does. Ask your lawyer whether the label on a form is enough on its own, and read the statute’s own words alongside each agreement.

When the exemption does not protect the owner

Subsection 5(6) says that, for greater certainty, nothing in section 5 exempts living accommodation subject to a tenancy to which the Act applies, unless that tenancy has first been terminated in accordance with the Act. If any occupant lives on a site year-round or has treated it as a home, ask the seller how that arrangement began and whether anyone has ever served or received a notice under the Act. The Act’s definition of “landlord” includes a landlord’s successors in title, so a buyer who accepts the seller’s description without asking can take on a tenancy the exemption never covered.

Mobile home parks and land lease communities

The Act has its own Part for mobile home parks and land lease communities. It defines a “mobile home park” as land on which one or more occupied mobile homes are located, including the rental units and the land, structures, services and facilities the landlord retains for the tenants’ common use. A “land lease home” is a dwelling, other than a mobile home, that is a permanent structure on leased land. Where a long-term site holds either, ask your lawyer whether that Part applies to the site. Section 5.2 also sets a separate, conditional exemption for some land lease home sites, so read its requirements rather than assuming.

Park models and what they are built to

If a seasonal site carries a park model, the Building Code matters too. Under Ontario’s Building Code, O. Reg. 332/12, section 9.38 applies to manufactured buildings designed and built to the CAN/CSA-Z241 Series, “Park Model Trailers”, and used as a seasonal recreational building of residential occupancy. Such a building is deemed to comply with the Code, except as provided in Subsection 9.38.3. Ask which units on site are park models, who owns each one, and whether the paperwork shows the standard they were built to. Also ask whether the unit sits on a seasonal site or on a site the occupant treats as a home, because that answer feeds back into the tenancy questions above.

Water service to seasonal sites

Seasonal sites depend on a water supply that may sit idle part of the year. If the supply is a small drinking water system under O. Reg. 319/08, the regulation says an owner or operator who intends to supply water after more than 60 days without supplying it must ensure a water sample is taken and tested and the medical officer of health is notified in writing, and no water may be supplied to a user until the medical officer of health is notified. The Health Protection and Promotion Act defines an “operator” as a person who has responsibility for and control over an activity carried on at the system, and a system can have more than one. Ask who has been giving those notices.

• Every seasonal agreement, signed and current, with the occupant’s history on the site
• Whether any occupant has used a site as a permanent home, and any notices served or received under the Residential Tenancies Act
• Which sites hold mobile homes or land lease homes, if any
• The list of park models and their documentation
• Who gave the medical officer of health the seasonal water-supply notices