By Brandon Ackerman, Vice President, Rental Management
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 management agreement. So the owner either bought a service they did not want, or they went and did the leasing themselves.
As of this week, that is fixed. Leasing is now something you can buy on its own.
We publish the timeline, because a vague promise about marketing your property is worth nothing to someone deciding whether to hire us.
One condition on those dates, and it matters: the clock starts when the unit is ready to photograph, not when you engage us. 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.
We would rather tell you this before you hire us than after.
Everything after handover 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 also hold the rent deposit obligation from that day forward, along with the annual interest you owe your resident 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.
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 pay a set-up fee when we start, which covers onboarding and the professional photography. We collect the rent deposit from your resident before any key changes hands. Our leasing fee is netted out of that deposit, with your set-up fee credited against it, and we forward the balance to you with the signed lease at handover. Expect that balance to land a little under what you paid at the start, because HST applies to our fee but cannot be added to a rent deposit, so the tax comes out of the same money.
You then credit your resident's ledger with a full last month's rent deposit. They paid it in full even though most of it went to the leasing fee, and their ledger has to say so.
Your resident pays their first month's rent directly to you on the first day of the tenancy. 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.
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.
Leasing on its own is the cheaper number, and it is not close. We publish the side-by-side arithmetic on the leasing services page rather than making you ask for it.
What the difference buys, if you choose 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 once for the part 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.
Start with a free rental evaluation. It takes about a minute, and you get a realistic rent range for your property and a written quote within one business day. Tell us you want leasing only, and leasing only is 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.
Leasing Services 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.
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-08-11, not legal advice. Legislation, regulations and tribunal practice change. For advice on a specific property or situation, speak with a lawyer or licensed paralegal.
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