What a broken lease actually costs.
We have spoken with dozens of business owners across Canada who did everything right and still lost their space, or nearly did, to a lease with almost no rules. Here are some of their stories, grouped by what went wrong.
Priced out at renewal.
At the end of a term, a landlord can raise the rent by any amount, even after a business has poured years and hundreds of thousands of dollars into the space.
People's Pint Brewery
One of the city's fastest-rising breweries. After five years, a 40% renewal increase they could not sustain. The landlord later struggled to re-let the space, with one commercial brewer calling it too expensive.
Read the story →East India Company Ltd.
Importing fine spices and rice since the early 1980s. When the block sold to a global investment manager in 2022, the rent rose 312%. After more than 40 years, the retail store closed in 2023, and the second generation is rebuilding the wholesale business.
Marino's Restaurant
An iconic local London restaurant for 29 years. In April 2022 the Tsergas family was told to pay 80% more or move. Given two weeks to clear out their equipment and memories, they closed, and the space sat vacant long after.
Read the story →Station W
After 13 years on Wellington Street, owner Simon Defoy could not absorb a 60% renewal increase. The cafe closed in May 2026, renewing calls for commercial lease reform in Quebec.
Read the story →La Tienda
Anne St-Hilaire ran La Tienda, a travel and hiking-gear shop, for 11 years on Wellington Street, just as it was crowned the "coolest street in the world." Rent climbed faster than she could keep up, and she packed up to relocate off the very strip her business helped make popular.
Read the story →Fruiterie Shaana
Thaaraha Satkunapala and her husband built Fruiterie Shaana, a mom-and-pop grocery on Monk Boulevard, over 28 years. When the lease came up for renewal, a "for rent" sign went up in the window, and the family faced losing both the store their community leans on and their own livelihood to a rent hike.
Read the story →Nowhere to turn.
When a dispute goes wrong, the only path is an expensive lawsuit. There is no affordable, out-of-court way to resolve a commercial landlord and tenant disagreement.
NU Grocery
Owner Valerie Leloup was owed almost $25,000 by her landlord. Withholding rent to offset it would have risked eviction, so she fought a years-long court case. She won, but the time, stress, and legal costs ate much of what she was owed.
What to do if your landlord owes you →S.P.A.C.E. Dance Studio
After decades in place, owner Linette Doherty's landlord handed the building to their children, who raised the rent by over 30%. A persistent sewage leak made the basement unusable. Her only recourse was a costly lawsuit, so she relocated instead.
Read the story →Rayah
Chef Wafa El Rhazi opened her French-Moroccan restaurant on Parliament Street in 2025. Within a year she was served a notice of default and an eviction threat over roughly $7,500 in extra charges her landlord could not document, on top of more than $30,000 already paid in provisional TMI fees. She is fighting to keep the doors open.
Read the story →Trapped by the lease.
Commercial leases run dozens of pages with no standard template. The terms buried inside them can be just as damaging as the headline rent.
Footprints on Muskoka
Krista Mansour spent five years on a simple rent-plus-utilities deal. At renewal she was handed a triple net lease shifting building taxes, insurance, maintenance, even the property manager's health insurance onto her. She refused, and got 60 days to vacate.
What a triple net lease means →Till Death BBQ
Joy and Shannon Warner built a beloved catering and BBQ spot. Two years in, the landlord raised the rent mid-term through a Schedule A clause, compounded by an illegal septic install and drawn-out negotiations. The community rallied, but commercial leases are not built to be understood by the people signing them.
Read the story →Coco's Neighbourhood Coffee Shop
After five years building a fixture on College Street, owner Nicole Bilyea was told a week before her lease expired that it would not be renewed, despite earlier assurances she could stay. With a new patio and electrical upgrades freshly paid for and no right to a renewal offer, Coco's closed for good in January 2026, the space handed to a relative for a clinic.
Read the story →Going through something similar?
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