A First-Time Landlord Checklist

Tell your insurer. A standard homeowner policy generally does not respond once the property is tenanted. You need a landlord policy, and discovering this after a claim is an expensive way to learn it.

Tell your mortgage lender. Most residential mortgages permit renting, some require notice, and a few do not allow it at all.

Check the condominium declaration, if it is a condo. Minimum lease terms, registration requirements, and restrictions on short-term rentals are common.

Check municipal requirements. Licensing rules for rental housing differ across the GTA and have changed recently in several municipalities. Confirm what applies at your address.

Smoke and carbon monoxide alarms. Required on every storey and outside sleeping areas, and CO alarms wherever there is a fuel-burning appliance or attached garage. Test them and record the date.

Set the rent deliberately. On most units this is close to a permanent decision. See Setting the Rent.

Take complete applications only. An incomplete file tells you something.

Call the references. Both of them, properly. This is where the real information is, and it is the step people skip.

Screen within the law. Ontario's Human Rights Code limits what you may consider, and rigid rent-to-income cutoffs applied as a gate have been found discriminatory. See Evaluating Tenant Profiles.

Use the Ontario Standard Lease. Required for most private residential tenancies. Anything specific to your unit goes in an attached schedule, and nothing in it can contradict the Act.

Collect first and last month's rent, and nothing else. No damage deposit, no pet deposit, no cleaning deposit, no key deposit beyond the replacement cost, and no post-dated cheques as a requirement.

Diarise the deposit interest. You owe interest on last month's rent every year, at the guideline rate. It is 2.1 per cent for 2026. Almost no landlord pays it and almost every tenant is entitled to it.