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E-file Instructions for registered approval authorities



Important: If you identify an appeal that was filed in error with your approval authority, please contact the appellant immediately to redirect them to the appropriate approval authority so they don’t miss the appeal filing deadline. You will also need to forward the appeal to the Ontario Land Tribunal (OLT) through e-file to be correctly disposed of. You can contact the OLT if assistance is needed.

Instructions for appeals received through e-file

Step 1: Access and review submitted appeals

When an appellant submits an appeal to your approval authority, the submitted appeal will appear in the e-file Approval Authority Dashboard under the heading “Appeals Pending Review”. Select any one of the appeals that appear here to verify the information submitted. Once you’ve reviewed, change the status of the appeal to one of these options:

  • Review in Progress
  • Reviewed
  • Reviewed–Issue(s)
    • Note: you can use this status to identify an appeal with the following issues: Late Appeal, Missing Information/Document(s) or Incorrect Approval Authority

Step 2: Create a case package (the “record” to forward to OLT)

The next step is to group related appeals into case package(s), based on existing criteria, before forwarding to the OLT. A case package may contain one appeal or multiple related appeals. You will group appeals together, as per your existing process, if they have the same case type and section number, i.e., they have the same reference number such as By-law #123 or OPA #42.

In creating a case package, e-file allows you to:

  • Add the contact(s) from your office for the case.
  • Add representative(s) for your approval authority, if applicable.
  • Upload documents related to the case such as relevant checklist items and a cover letter.
  • Provide specific information about the appeal (e.g., number of residential units proposed, whether the approval authority intends to appear before the Tribunal, the number and types of witnesses planned, whether appellants made their opinions on the matter known to council, etc.).
  • Provide appeal reasons (if applicable).

There are two ways you can group appeals together into a case.

Method 1: Group appeals at the beginning of the case submission process

Go to the “Appeals Reviewed” option in the Approval Authority Dashboard to see any appeals that you’ve already reviewed and saved. From here, select any appeals that you’d like to group together into a single case package. Note that the appeal you select first will be the appeal for which the details will be displayed during the case package creation flow. Follow the on-screen directions given in the portal to complete the case submission process.

Method 2: Group appeals mid-flow when submitting a case

One of the screens in the case submission process flow is the Appeals screen. Here you can click the Add Appeals button to add more appeals from your Appeals Reviewed list, into that case package. Use this option if you already have a case package in progress and you receive a new related appeal. The case package in progress could include: 

  • appeals you received through e-file; and/or
  • appeals you’ve received on paper or via email that you’ve entered yourself

Step 3: Submit the case package to OLT
Once you have entered the required data and uploaded all checklist items, you will review the Summary, complete the declaration statement and select Submit. You will then receive an email confirming that you have successfully forwarded the case package to OLT.

Instructions for appeals received on paper or via email

Step 1: Scan and save any documents received on paper

To assist the processing of your appeal, please name your saved document files with the following naming convention:

I. the municipal file number or reference number
II. the municipality (if applicable)
III. the appellant’s last name or corporation/organization name
IV. the document type
V. the date of submission (month/day/year)

For example: “By-law123-44TorontoSmithAffidavit12-05-23”. 

Important: Do not use special characters in naming your documents. Special characters are any characters that are not an alphabetic or numeric character. For example: $%#!+*/@\;^”. You may upload Microsoft products (e.g., Word, Excel), PDFs, MP4s, JPEGs or other image files. Msg format and zip files are not supported.

Step 2: Enter the appeal in e-file

There are two ways you can do this:

Option 1: As a new case:

    • Use this method if:
      • this is the only appeal for a case that you’ve received, or
      • you have other e-filed appeals related to the appeal you’ve received that have been reviewed but not yet packaged into a case 
  • Tip: Add any case parties (e.g., appellant, approval authority contact or approval authority legal representative) before you start creating your case. Go to the Case Parties tab and select Add Party to create a new record and contact details.
    • Go to the New Case tab at the top of the page and follow the instructions to enter your case type, legislation section number, description and reference number.
    • Add any already reviewed e-filed appeals to the case package when you get to the Add Appeals step in the process. If there are no e-filed appeals related to this case, then you can skip this step and proceed to the next screen.
    • Complete the required address information in the Subject Property Location section on the next page.
    • On the Appellant Information screen, click the magnifying glass icon in the Appellant search field to search for existing appellants or click New to add a new appellant. Note: if you want to add joint appellants, you cannot create new joint appellants here. To add a Joint Appellant, you need to first add the joint appellant record using the Case Parties tab at the top of this screen. If you haven’t done this earlier, when you click the Case Parties tab now, you may get a pop-up message asking to Leave Site. In fact, you are not leaving the site, just leaving this page. Click Leave and go to the Case Parties tab. Then click Add Party, enter the appellant details and save. You will then have to navigate back to this screen by going to the Approval Authority Cases tab at the top of the screen and selecting “In Progress Cases” to get back to this case. When you click on the Case Package ID, you will be taken back to this page, as the last page that you were working on, and may have to re-enter any appellant information you had previously entered.
    • Proceed to enter the required information on subsequent pages, such as approval authority contact details and case details.
    • When you arrive at the documents section, upload the appeal file you scanned in Step 1 by selecting “eFile Case Documents” and upload the electronic copy of the appeal form there, including any accompanying documents.

Option 2: As an attachment to an in-process case package:

    • Use this method if you receive an appeal that relates to a case package that you’ve already started, for example, where one appeal was submitted through e-file and another appeal of the same instrument (e.g., By-law 123) was submitted via email.
    • In the section of the case submission process where you upload documents, select “eFfile Case Documents” and upload the electronic copy of the appeal form there, including any accompanying documents.

Step 3: Forward payment (if applicable)

If the appellant has paid by cheque, you can mail/courier the appellant’s cheque to the OLT at 655 Bay Street, Suite 1500, Toronto, ON, M5G 1E5.

Instructions for level-1 administrators: managing staff access to e-file

There are two levels of access to e-file available to registered approval authorities:

Level-1: Administrator

Municipal staff, such as the Clerk, can request from OLT to add them as Level-1 Administrators. Level-1 access can only be granted by OLT staff after a verification process is completed. The Level-1 administrator(s) are OLT’s primary contact(s) for e-file. Level-1 administrators can grant or revoke access to other staff from their office.

Level-2: General/Regular user

The Level-2 users are any staff in the approval authority office who have been granted access by their Level-1 administrator(s). They do not need approval from the OLT to access e-file. They have the same ability as Level-1 administrators to:

• review submitted appeals
• enter new appeals
• manage party and representative contacts
• create and submit case packages to the OLT

Adding level-2 users

To invite a staff person to become a level-2 user:

• go to the Approval Authority Administration tab
• click Create Invitation to enter the email address for the individual you wish to invite

They will receive an email from e-file with a link to register on the portal. As part of the registration process, they will need to sign-up for a My Ontario Account. Once they register, their name will appear under the Approval Authority Administration tab in the Active Users list.

Revoking level-2 users

You may need to remove users if they are leaving the organization or changing roles. Under the Approval Authority Administration tab, you will see a list of Active Users. Click on the down arrow next to the name of the user you’d like to remove and select “Remove Access”. The user will receive an email notification that their access has been removed. 

Technical/Troubleshooting notes

The e-file portal does not work well with older browsers. Please navigate using current browsers (e.g., Google Chrome, Firefox, Microsoft Edge). If you experience issues, try disabling pop-up blockers or clear your browser cache. 

In the event of a system outage: 

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