21 guides, from your first viewing to your last day.
Renting has more moving parts than people expect, and most of them only matter for a few weeks at a time. Whether you are still looking or already halfway through a lease, there is a section below for it.
Before you start viewing
The paperwork to have ready before you see anything, and who pays for the help. Get this done and the rest moves quickly.
Building a Tenant Profile
In a competitive rental market, the applicant with their documents ready wins. Here's what to have on hand before you start booking showings.
Reference Documents You'll Be Asked For
The paperwork a landlord or listing agent will want, why each piece is asked for, and what you're not obliged to hand over.
Guarantors and Co-Signers
What a guarantor actually promises, how it differs from co-signing, and how I handle it in the paperwork.
Who Pays the Commission
Whether representation costs you anything as a tenant, who actually writes the cheque, and where the money goes.
Applying for a place
How to put yourself first in line, what is actually negotiable, and where your deposit goes once you hand it over.
Competing With Multiple Offers on a Lease
Rentals go to competition too. What actually wins one, and it is not usually the highest rent.
Negotiating Price and Terms
Rent is only one of the numbers on the table. Here's what else moves, and when you have the leverage to move it.
The Deposit
What a landlord may lawfully collect, what they may not, and the interest you are owed every year and almost never paid.
Signing the lease
What you are agreeing to, which clauses are void no matter what the page says, and what happens when the year is up.
Agreements and Legal: What You're Signing
RIG, BDRA, Co-operation Agreement, Agreement to Lease, the Standard Form of Lease, and the schedules attached to it. What each document does and which ones bind you.
Common Clauses in an Agreement to Lease
Who cuts the grass, what happens when the dishwasher dies, and which clauses are not worth the paper they are printed on.
The One-Year Lease and What Happens After
Your fixed term ends and nobody sends you anything. Here's what has actually happened, and why it's usually good news.
After You Sign the Lease
The deposit, the residential tenancy agreement, your receipts, and the two accounts to open before you get the keys.
Moving in
The two weeks before the keys, the first hour after them, and the cover that costs very little and matters a great deal.
A GTA Moving Checklist
Utilities, elevator bookings, condo move-in fees, and the deposits buildings ask for. In the order they need doing.
Moving Into a Rental
The first day in the unit, and the twenty minutes of it that protect your deposit two years from now.
Renters Insurance
What it actually covers, why your landlord asks for it, and why it is not protecting the building.
While you are renting
Rent going up, things breaking, people and pets moving in. The situations that come up once you are living there.
Rent Increases
The guideline, the ninety days' notice, and the exemption that means none of it applies to a great many newer condos.
Repairs and Maintenance
How to ask so it counts, what to do when nothing happens, and what a T2 or T6 application actually involves.
Pets, Smoking, and Guests
Which lease clauses actually bind you in Ontario, and which are void the moment they are signed.
Roommates and Joint Leases
Joint and several liability, in plain terms, and what actually happens when one person moves out.
Leaving, or being asked to
How much notice you owe and when, and what a landlord has to prove before you have to go anywhere.
Ending an Existing Lease
What happens when a fixed term runs out, how much notice you owe, the routes out of a lease early, and when to start looking.
If Your Landlord Sells
What changes, what does not, and what it means when the buyer serves you an N12.
N12 and Personal Use
What a genuine personal-use notice looks like, the compensation owed, and what bad faith costs a landlord.
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