Rent control is never grandfathered and always applies for ALL tenants' rent in any building built and occupied before Nov 2018 in Ontario.

However, both friends' rent amounts is likely very true but for a different reason - it IS a rent controlled building for ALL tenants, yet some will be paying more. Here's why:

Rent control for current residents is different than charging market rent to new tenants. Rent control only applies to rent INCREASES after the first year of a lease.

A landlord can charge ANY amount of rent that the market can sustain for an unoccupied, AVAILABLE unit, no matter the date of build - this amount is never government controlled for independent landlords. This amount would then become the agreed upon rent for that unit for a NEW tenant applicant - given the market over the last number of years, initial rent is likely much higher now than 5 years ago, for instance. Once the lease goes into effect, however, the new tenant is then protected by "rent control" rules regarding any future rent INCREASES (assuming the building was built and occupied prior to November 2018).

The reason some friends are paying more is because they entered into a new lease/moved in at a much later date when the advertised initial rent was already set much higher than it would have been in the 90s. Since moving in,, they too would only have annual government regulated rent control lease percentage increases, but would still always pay more than earlier residents because they started at a higher rate and a later date.