The Ontario deadlines that expire long before two years

The rule everyone knows is not the one that catches people

The Limitations Act, 2002 sets a basic two-year period running from discovery of the claim, with a fifteen-year ultimate cap running from the act or omission regardless of discovery. That much is common knowledge, and claims are rarely lost to it.

What gets missed are the shorter, separate requirements attached to particular defendants and particular kinds of claim — notice periods measured in days, which can expire before the client has finished deciding whether to retain anyone at all.

Ten days: municipal highway and sidewalk claims

For a claim against a municipality for damages from non-repair of a highway or bridge, written notice of the claim and of the injury — including the date, time and location — must be served on, or sent by registered mail to, the clerk of the municipality within 10 days of the occurrence. Where two or more municipalities are jointly responsible, each clerk must be served.

Two qualifications matter and are frequently reported inaccurately. Failure to give notice is not a bar where the injured person died as a result of the injury. And a judge may relieve against want or insufficiency of notice on finding both a reasonable excuse and that the municipality is not prejudiced in its defence.

A related point sits just above it: except in the case of gross negligence, a municipality is not liable for personal injury caused by snow or ice on a sidewalk. The notice question and the liability question are separate, and both need answering early.

Six weeks: libel in a newspaper or broadcast

Where the alleged libel appeared in a newspaper or in a broadcast, written notice specifying the matter complained of must be served on the publisher within six weeks of the plaintiff learning of it, and the action itself must be commenced within three months of publication.

Both periods are short enough that the file can be lost during the initial consultation stage, and the notice is a precondition rather than a formality — the action does not survive its absence.

Sixty then ninety days: construction liens

A construction lien must be preserved within 60 days of the triggering event — typically substantial performance, last supply, or termination, depending on the contract's status. A preserved lien must then be perfected within 90 days of the date by which it had to be preserved.

Perfection requires two things, and doing only one of them expires the lien: registering a certificate of action AND commencing the action. Note also that projects governed by the pre-July 2018 regime work to a 45-day preservation period under the former legislation, so the contract's date decides which clock is running.

Sixty days, but as a gate: proceedings against the Crown

A proceeding against the Crown cannot be commenced until at least 60 days after written notice, with sufficient particulars to identify the occasion, has been served. This one is structurally different from the others: it is a waiting period rather than a deadline.

The consequence is a squeeze rather than a cliff. The underlying two-year limitation keeps running throughout, so a file that reaches you at twenty-three months has a notice period that cannot be compressed and a limitation that will not wait for it.

Two years from death, with no discoverability

Claims by or against the estate of a deceased person run two years from the date of death under the Trustee Act. The important feature is what is absent: this period is not extended by discoverability, so the usual instinct that the clock starts when the claim was found does not apply.

Family property: the earliest of three

An application for equalization of net family property must be brought within the earliest of six years after separation, two years after the divorce, or six months after the first spouse's death. Because it is the earliest that governs, the file needs all three dates captured at intake rather than only the one that prompted the retainer.

And the claims with no limitation at all

The Limitations Act, 2002 excludes a set of claims from any limitation period, including proceedings based on sexual assault, on sexual misconduct, and on assault in an intimate or dependency relationship, as well as certain support claims and undiscovered environmental claims.

The practical discipline is the same as everywhere else here: record the cause of action on the file even when no date needs calculating, so the answer is visible later rather than being re-derived by whoever picks the matter up.