You Can Now Hire KEILTY for the Lease-Up Alone, and Take the Property Back After Move-In

Updated 2026-09-09. This service was launched on 2026-08-11 as a standalone leasing engagement. It is now structured as a short-term property management agreement, and this post has been updated to describe how it actually works.

There is a request we have been turning down, or at least fumbling, for years.

An owner calls. They have a house, or a condo, or a basement unit they just finished. They are not looking for a property manager. They collect their own rent, they have a plumber they trust, and they are perfectly comfortable running the place. What they want is for someone else to find the tenant, because that is the part where a mistake costs you eighteen months instead of an afternoon.

Until now the answer was that our leasing work came bundled with a full, year-long management agreement. So the owner either bought a service they did not want, or they went and did the leasing themselves.

As of this month, that is fixed. We now offer a lease-up mandate: a management agreement with a fixed term rather than an open one. We manage the property through pricing, marketing, showings, screening and the signing of the lease, stay on through move-in and for 14 days after, then hand the file back to you and the agreement ends.

What it looks like, day by day

We publish the timeline, because a vague promise about marketing your property is worth nothing to someone deciding whether to hire us.

• Day 0. We price it and sign. You get a rent range in writing, built from comparable homes that actually leased nearby rather than from what other owners are asking and failing to get, along with the marketing plan. We sign the Property Management Agreement before anything goes live.
• Day 1 to 3. Professional photography, listing copy that answers the questions renters actually ask, and syndication across the major rental portals.
• Day 3 to 5. Showings start. We answer the calls, qualify who is worth a viewing, and meet them at the property ourselves. We hold one copy of the key for showings, and it goes to your resident on move-in day. You do not spend your Saturday letting strangers into your house.
• On approval. Credit, employment and income verification, landlord references and identity on every applicant. We present the completed screening file. You approve the resident, always. Then we send you the Ontario Standard Lease, with the correct schedules, for you and your resident to sign digitally. Your resident pays the rent deposit directly to you before any key changes hands, and we confirm with you that it has arrived.
• Move-in day. Your resident gets their keys and pays first month's rent directly to you. We complete the move-in inspection with photos and confirm the payment set-up is running.
• Day 14 after move-in. The mandate ends. We hand you the file: signed lease and schedules, move-in inspection, screening file, resident contacts and a handover checklist. From here the property is yours.

One condition on those dates, and it matters: the clock starts when the unit is ready to photograph, not when we sign. Cleaned, cleared, repairs done, utilities on. A half-finished unit does not photograph well, and a weak listing costs you far more in vacancy than a few days of preparation does.

When the mandate ends

We would rather tell you this before you hire us than after.

Everything after day 14 stays with you: monthly rent collection, arrears and notices, maintenance calls and emergencies, inspections during the tenancy, utilities and compliance, the annual rent increase, the renewal, and anything that ends up at the Landlord and Tenant Board. You hold the rent deposit from the day your resident pays it, along with the annual interest you owe them on it.

That is not a caveat buried in a footnote. It is the whole design. You are buying the two-week job, not the twelve-month one. If reading that list is what sent you looking for a property manager in the first place, you want full management instead, and we publish every fee for it.

How the money actually moves

Worth spelling out, because first-time landlords are routinely given wrong information about Ontario deposits.

Ontario permits a landlord to collect exactly two things at move-in: a rent deposit equal to one month's rent, which must be applied to the final month of the tenancy, and a key deposit at the cost of replacing the keys. Security deposits, damage deposits, pet deposits and cleaning fees are all illegal here, whatever a landlord in another province may have told you. We went through the detail in what landlords can legally collect.

So the sequence is this. You sign the Property Management Agreement and we invoice a setup fee, which covers onboarding, the pricing report and the professional photography. Your resident pays the rent deposit directly to you before any key changes hands, and we confirm with you that it has arrived. We never hold your resident's money. Your resident pays their first month's rent directly to you on the first day of the tenancy, and we give them whatever payment instructions you want used, or pass along your Pre-Authorized Debit forms so the monthly payments are already running before they take possession. Fourteen days after move-in the mandate ends and we invoice the completion fee, one month's rent plus HST less the setup fee you already paid.

Two invoices, both to you, and your resident's deposit never touches our account.

Who this suits

Owners who self-manage well. You have the systems and the temperament for it. What you do not have is a leasing pipeline, three portal accounts and a screening process you run every week.

First-time landlords. You moved, you inherited a house, or you finished a second unit. The first tenancy sets the tone for every year after it, and it needs to start at a realistic rent on the correct lease.

Student-house owners, particularly in Kingston. Large houses lease on a calendar rather than on demand, and asking rents on the biggest units have softened while they have held up on small ones. If you own a four or five bedroom house, pricing and timing decide your year far more than day-to-day management does. Getting the rent wrong by a hundred dollars a month is a rounding error. Getting the leasing window wrong costs you a term.

To be frank about the trade-off

The lease-up mandate is the cheaper number, and it is not close. We publish the side-by-side arithmetic on the lease-up mandate page rather than making you ask for it.

What the difference buys, if you choose full management instead, is the other twelve months: the arrears conversation, the furnace at eleven at night, the notice that has to be served correctly the first time, the renewal. If you already handle all of that and handle it well, pay us for the two weeks you would rather not do and keep the rest of your money. Both are legitimate choices, and we would rather you make the right one for how you want to spend your time than have us sell you the bigger package.

Where to start

Start with a free rental evaluation. It takes about a minute. A.J. Keilty calls within 20 minutes in business hours, and a realistic rent range for your property and a written quote follow within 24 hours of that call. Ask for the lease-up mandate and that is exactly what you will be quoted.

If you would rather work it out yourself first, our management versus self-management calculator runs the numbers with no email gate, and the vacancy loss calculator puts a figure on what an empty week actually costs.

The lease-up mandate is available anywhere KEILTY operates in Ontario. See the communities we serve, or call 613-545-3322 and we will tell you what your property should rent for.

KEILTY Realty Management Inc. is a property management firm, not a registered real estate brokerage. We lease and manage rental property as the owner's property manager under a written management agreement.

This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-09-09, not legal advice. Legislation, regulations and tribunal practice change. For advice on a specific property or situation, speak with a lawyer or licensed paralegal.