By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management
A property management agreement decides who does what, who gets paid, and how the relationship ends. It does not decide who the law holds responsible. Several of the things owners try hardest to negotiate into that document are already settled by the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006, by a regulation under it, or by the Law Society's licensing by-law, and they stay settled whatever the agreement says. The questions below are the ones worth asking before you sign, because each of them has an answer in a statute rather than in a negotiation.
The short version.
It decides the commercial relationship, and almost nothing about your obligations to your tenant. That distinction is worth getting straight before the first question, because a lot of management agreements are drafted as though they allocate legal responsibility, and they cannot.
Two provisions set the boundary. Section 3 (1) provides that the Act, "except Part V.1", "applies with respect to rental units in residential complexes, despite any other Act and despite any agreement or waiver to the contrary". So nothing you and a manager agree between yourselves stops the Act applying to the unit.
Section 3 (4) is the limit on that, and it is the one Act a management agreement cannot put behind the Residential Tenancies Act: "If a provision of this Act conflicts with a provision of another Act, other than the Human Rights Code, the provision of this Act applies." Everything else yields. The Code does not.
There is one carve-out inside the Act itself and it matters here. Section 194 (2) provides that "Despite subsection 3 (1) and subject to subsection (3), a settlement agreed to under this section may contain provisions that contravene any provision under this Act", and section 194 (3) caps any rent increase agreed that way at the guideline plus 3 per cent. A settlement at the Board can lawfully go where the Act otherwise will not, which is worth holding on to when you read the next section on who is allowed to settle on your behalf.
Section 4 (1) then provides that, "Subject to subsection 12.1 (11) and section 194, a provision in a tenancy agreement that is inconsistent with this Act or the regulations is void." Read that one carefully, because it is narrower than it looks. It voids a provision in a tenancy agreement. A management agreement between an owner and a manager is not a tenancy agreement, so section 4 (1) has nothing to say about it.
Our reading is that the practical effect is this: your management agreement is a contract like any other and is governed by contract law, while the Act's duties attach to the unit and to whoever answers to the definition of landlord, regardless of how the two of you divided the work. An indemnity clause can decide who ultimately pays. It cannot decide who the Board names.
There is one place where the Act does reach into an owner and manager agreement. Section 214 (1) binds "No agent who represents a landlord, tenant, non-profit housing co-operative or member of a non-profit housing co-operative in a proceeding under this Act or who assists" any of them "in a matter arising under this Act", and prohibits a fee based on a proportion of what has been or may be recovered, gained or saved "where the proportion exceeds the prescribed amount". Two things follow from that wording. The second limb reaches an agent who assists in a matter and never attends a hearing, so a manager running an arrears file is inside it. And the prohibition is a ceiling rather than a ban.
Section 60 of O. Reg. 516/06 sets the ceiling: "For the purpose of section 214 of the Act, the allowed amount of a contingency fee charged by an agent of a landlord or tenant is 10 per cent of the amount that has been or may be recovered, gained or saved, in whole or in part, over a one-year period through the efforts of the agent." Section 214 (2) then provides that "An agreement that provides for a fee prohibited by subsection (1) is void." So a contingency clause at or under 10 per cent stands, and one above it is void by statute rather than by contract law. That is the only provision of the Act we found that voids a term of the management agreement itself.
The definition of "landlord" in section 2 (1) is the next place to look, and the clause that decides the question is the first one. Clause (a) includes "the owner of a rental unit or any other person who permits occupancy of a rental unit, other than a tenant who occupies a rental unit in a residential complex and who permits another person to also occupy the unit or any part of the unit". Its only carve-out is for a tenant, so a manager who grants the tenancy and hands over the keys is permitting occupancy and is inside it. Clause (c) is the narrower route, catching a person entitled to possession who also attempts to enforce a landlord's rights, and it needs both. Neither clause names a manager, but clause (a) does not have to.
If you want the clause-by-clause reading of the document itself, we set that out in what is in a property management agreement in Ontario.
Ask this first, and ask for a name and a licence number. It is the question with the widest gap between what owners assume and what the rules allow.
The Board's Practice Direction on Representation before the LTB, effective as of March 3, 2022, is direct about it: "A person who is not licensed by the Law Society of Ontario as a lawyer or paralegal may not represent a party at an LTB proceeding unless that person falls within the specific licensing exemptions established by the LSO." It then names several exemptions and says the list includes "the following unlicensed persons, among others", closing with the note that "A complete list of approved exemptions is on the LSO's website". It is not a closed list, so do not run an argument off what is missing from it.
On property managers specifically, the Practice Direction says that an unlicensed person seeking to represent a landlord "on the basis that they are a property manager may not be allowed to represent the landlord if they are in fact engaged in the business of providing legal services to multiple third parties and do not fall within one of the LSO exemptions." Two things about that sentence. The test has two limbs joined by "and". And the verb is "may not be allowed", not "will not be allowed", so this is a question the adjudicator decides on the day.
It is a question the adjudicator can also decide part way through. The same document provides that "The LTB may exclude a representative from a proceeding where necessary to prevent an abuse of process (for example, because the representative has a conflict of interest) or, in the case of unlicensed representatives, where the LTB finds the representative is not competent to properly represent or to advise the party or witness, or does not understand and comply with the duties and responsibilities of a representative. See: LTB Rule of Procedure A9 and Hansen v. Toronto (City), 2010 HRTO 13." Three grounds, and the second and third are expressly confined to unlicensed representatives. That is the concrete answer to what happens when a hearing turns contested: you can lose your representative in the middle of it and be left standing there yourself.
The Practice Direction also states its own conflict rule, and it runs back to the provision above: "In the event of a conflict between the RTA and the LSO rules respecting who may represent a party, the relevant section of the RTA must be applied (RTA section 3(4))." What sits behind that is section 185. Section 185 (1) requires an application to be filed "in the form approved by the Board", accompanied by the prescribed information, and signed by the applicant. Section 185 (2), a separate subsection, is the one that lets someone else sign: an applicant "may give written authorization to sign an application to a person representing the applicant under the authority of the Law Society Act", and the Board may require a copy of that authorization.
We went to the by-law the Practice Direction points at. Law Society By-Law 4, whose amendment history ends on May 28, 2026, lists at section 30 the categories who may provide paralegal-class legal services without a licence, and representation at the Landlord and Tenant Board is a paralegal-class service. Section 6 (1) of the by-law defines "proceeding", for the purposes of section 6 (2), to include a proceeding or intended proceeding "before a tribunal established under an Act of the Legislature of Ontario or under an Act of Parliament, or" one of the insurance matters in the clause that follows it, and section 6 (2) authorises a Class P1 licensee to represent a party in a proceeding.
There are seven categories at section 30: an in-house provider employed by a single employer who acts only for that employer, legal clinic staff, not-for-profit staff, a friend or neighbour acting free of charge in no more than three matters a year, a family member acting free of charge, a Member of Provincial Parliament or their staff acting for a constituent, and a category headed "Other profession or occupation" that on its own words reaches only a member of the Human Resources Professionals Association of Ontario in the Certified Human Resources Professional category. Searched across the whole by-law on 2026-09-17, the words "property manager" appear zero times, and so does the looser "property manag". There is no property manager exemption and there is no general occupation route into one.
So the position, to be frank, and it is ours as much as anyone's: a manager who is genuinely the employee of one owner and acts only for that owner can fit the first category. A management company appearing for many separate owner-clients fits none of the seven, and that is exactly why the Practice Direction's test is phrased around "multiple third parties". Ask your prospective manager which of those two they are, and what they do when a hearing is contested.
Two more lines from the same document are worth having in front of you. On authority, once an agent is accepted: "Unless the LTB is provided with evidence of any express limitation placed upon an Agent's authority, the Agent is permitted to act in lieu of the party for all purposes, including conducting examinations and making submissions, giving evidence and entering into consent orders and mediated agreements that are legally binding upon the party." Your manager can settle your case. If you want a limit on that, it has to be in writing and the Board has to be told. And on your absence: "An unlicensed person seeking to represent a party who is not present for the proceeding must provide the LTB with written authorization from the party."
One thing that is not restricted, and it is worth knowing so the question stays proportionate. The Practice Direction records that in Rivera v. Eleveld, 2022 ONSC 446, the Divisional Court confirmed that an agent signing a notice of termination on behalf of a party does not need to be licensed. Serving your notices is not the problem. Arguing your case is.
You stop being entitled to rent, and the two provisions that do it work differently. Ask who is responsible for issuing the lease and for putting your legal name and address on it.
Section 12 (1) requires every written tenancy agreement entered into on or after June 17, 1998 to set out "the legal name and address of the landlord to be used for the purpose of giving notices or other documents under this Act". Section 12 (2) requires a signed copy to reach the tenant within 21 days of the tenant signing and returning it. Section 12 (3) covers an oral agreement.
Then section 12 (4) is the sanction: until the landlord has complied, "(a) the tenant's obligation to pay rent is suspended; and (b) the landlord shall not require the tenant to pay rent." There is no ceiling on that. Section 12 (5) is the relief, and it is complete: once you comply, you "may require the tenant to pay any rent withheld". So section 12 costs you cash flow rather than money, and it costs it for exactly as long as the breach lasts.
Section 12.1 is the standard lease provision, and it is the one that can cost money outright. It does not name the standard lease or a date. It requires a tenancy agreement of a "prescribed class" to be in "the form prescribed", and the date and the form come from O. Reg. 9/18, which prescribes April 30, 2018 and the Residential Tenancy Agreement (Standard Form of Lease). The sequence then runs like this, and each clock has its own trigger.
Take an Ottawa duplex. The tenant demands a compliant lease in writing on Monday 2026-10-05. That right exists "once during the tenancy", under section 12.1 (5). Section 12.1 (6) lets the tenant withhold rent payments becoming due after 21 days have elapsed since the demand, so the 21 days run out on Monday 2026-10-26 and the rent the tenant may withhold is the payment due on Sunday 2026-11-01.
Section 12.1 (7) caps the total at one month's rent, and section 12.1 (8) stops the withholding on the day you comply, so complying late still limits the damage. Then section 12.1 (9) is the one to diarize: you may require that money back only if you comply "no later than 30 days after the date of the first rent payment withheld", which here is Tuesday 2026-12-01. Miss that date and the month is gone for good, because subsection (9) says "only if". Subsection (10) settles the separate question, and it runs your way: you may require the money back even if the tenant never signs the proposed lease.
Section 12.1 (11) adds that the tenancy is not void or unenforceable just because the lease was wrong, and section 12.1 (12) confirms section 12 keeps running alongside. So the two can bite at once.
One saving provision is the first thing to reach for when a document turns out to be imperfect, and it is worth reading to the end of its second subsection. Section 212 (1) provides that "Substantial compliance with this Act respecting the contents of forms, notices or documents is sufficient." Section 212 (2), added in 2024 and in force 2024-12-04, then sets the limit and it runs your way: "For greater certainty, an error in the contents of a form, notice or document still constitutes substantial compliance with this Act, as long as the error does not significantly prejudice a party's ability to participate in a proceeding under this Act." Note what both subsections are about, though. They go to the contents of a document, not to whether a duty was performed at all, so neither will rescue a lease that was never issued.
Ask who holds the lease templates, who checks the name and address, and what happens on the day a demand letter arrives while your manager is on holiday.
You do, on both counts, and the second one is an annual liability rather than an option. Ask how it is calculated and when it is paid.
Start with when you may take one at all. Section 106 (1) permits a landlord to require a rent deposit "if the landlord does so on or before entering into the tenancy agreement". Collect one after that point and it is not a deposit, it is an illegal charge under section 134. Section 106 (2) then caps it at the lesser of one rent period and one month.
Section 106 (3) says that if the lawful rent increases, the landlord "may require the tenant to pay an additional amount to increase the rent deposit up to the amount permitted". That is permissive and it is the part that gets remembered. Section 106 (6) is mandatory and it runs the other way: a landlord "shall pay interest to the tenant annually on the amount of the rent deposit at a rate equal to the guideline determined under section 120 that is in effect at the time payment becomes due."
Section 106 (7) is how the two meet, and it is a one-way mechanism rather than a mutual set-off. It lets the landlord deduct, from the interest owing, the amount by which the permitted deposit exceeds the deposit actually paid, and the deducted amount "shall be deemed to form part of the rent deposit paid by the tenant". Where the deposit already equals a month's rent and the increase is exactly the guideline, the interest and the top-up are the same figure and the deposit is corrected without cash moving. Where the deposit is short of a month, or the increase is an above-guideline one under section 126, they are not the same figure and cash has to move.
Either way it only happens if somebody runs the calculation every year, and there are two consequences if nobody does. Section 106 (9) gives the tenant self-help: they "may deduct the amount of the payment from a subsequent rent payment", without asking anyone. And clause 234 (e) makes it an offence in its own right to fail "to pay to the tenant annually interest on the rent deposit held in respect of their tenancy in accordance with section 106". The annual interest is not a bookkeeping nicety, it is a provincial offence if it is skipped. Section 106 (10) requires the deposit to be applied to the last rent period.
The question to ask is not whether the manager tracks deposits. It is whether they run the section 106 (6) interest annually, whether they apply section 106 (7) at the same time, and whether the deposit register transfers to you in a usable form if you leave.
The answer is different in the next municipality over, which is what makes this one worth asking before you sign rather than after an inspector calls. Section 224 (1) of the Act gates the provincial maintenance standards in O. Reg. 517/06 to a complex in a local municipality where "there is no municipal property standards by-law that applies to the residential complex", or where there is one and prescribed circumstances apply. Nothing has ever been prescribed for that second limb.
So where your municipality has a full property standards by-law, the by-law is the instrument an inspector enforces and O. Reg. 517/06 largely is not. Where it has none, the province's standards fill the gap. And where the by-law is exterior-only, section 4 of O. Reg. 517/06 splits the building, with the by-law outside and the regulation inside.
Here is the practical trap, and it is a good test of a manager. Ask them the minimum temperature you have to maintain. If the answer is twenty degrees Celsius under section 15 (1) of O. Reg. 517/06 and nothing else, they have given you the rule that may not bind your building at all. The same twenty degrees sits in section 4 (2) of O. Reg. 516/06, in near-identical words, and that one is not gated by section 224 (1) at all, because it comes through the definition of "vital service" in section 2 (1) of the Act.
Two limits on it, and both bite on a duplex. Section 4 (2) operates "For the purposes of subsection (1)", so it runs inside the September 1 to June 15 window that subsection (1) prescribes. And section 4 (3) disapplies it "to a rental unit in which the tenant can regulate the temperature and a minimum temperature of 20 degrees Celsius can be maintained by the primary source of heat", which covers a separately heated unit with its own thermostat. Section 15 (2) of O. Reg. 517/06 carries the identical carve-out. O. Reg. 517/06 itself carries no date range at all.
A manager who can tell you which kind of by-law your municipality has, and can name both provisions, is telling you something about how they will handle an inspection. One who cannot is going to find out at the same time you do.
Possibly your manager, and that is not obvious from the agreement. The Building Code Act, 1992 defines "owner" for its property standards sections to include "the person for the time being managing or receiving the rent of the land or premises in connection with which the word is used, whether on the person's own account or as agent or trustee of any other person, or who would receive the rent if the land and premises were let", and also "a lessee or occupant of the property who, under the terms of a lease, is required to repair and maintain the property in accordance with the standards for the maintenance and occupancy of property". Note the word "or": a manager who never touches rent still qualifies by managing.
The appeal follows service. Section 15.3 (1) gives it to "An owner or occupant who has been served with an order", within 14 days after being served, by registered mail to the secretary of the property standards committee. Section 15.2 (3) provides that the order "shall be served on the owner of the property and such other persons affected by it as the officer determines and a copy of the order may be posted on the property in a location visible to the public". Service on the owner is mandatory and everything beyond that is the officer's discretion, so because the section 15.1 (1) definition of owner takes in the person managing or receiving the rent, a manager who answers that definition sits inside the mandatory limb rather than the discretionary one. Section 15.3 (2) then deems an unappealed order confirmed.
Two further limbs of the appeal are worth knowing. Section 15.3 (3.1) lets the committee, among other things, "Extend the time for complying with the order", subject to the committee's opinion that doing so maintains the general intent of the by-law and the official plan. And section 15.3 (4) gives a further appeal to the Superior Court of Justice, from the committee's decision, within 14 days after a copy of that decision is sent, and it takes two steps: notifying the clerk of the municipality in writing and applying to the court.
Then read what a confirmed order does, because the same definition that lets a manager appeal also puts the work on them. Section 15.3 (7) provides that a confirmed or modified order "shall be final and binding upon the owner and occupant who shall carry out the repair or demolition within the time and in the manner specified in the order". An owner under that Act includes the person managing, so a manager who was served in their own right is also a person the order tells to do the work.
The order can also outlive your ownership. Section 15.2 (4) lets it be registered in the land registry office, and on registration "any person acquiring any interest in the land subsequent to the registration of the order shall be deemed to have been served with the order on the day on which the order was served under subsection (3)". The deemed service date is backdated to the original service, not to the purchase, which is what makes it an appeal problem rather than a paperwork problem. The same subsection provides for a certificate of satisfaction to be registered once the requirements are met, which operates as a discharge.
Compare that with the Act's own route, which applies where there is no by-law. Section 226 (1) gives the landlord 20 days after the day the order is issued to apply to the Board, on an L6 at $201, and section 226 (2) lets the Board "(a) confirm or vary the inspector's work order; (b) rescind the work order, if it finds that the landlord has complied with it; or (c) quash the work order." Different forum, different clock, different verbs.
And the cost of ignoring a by-law order is larger than the appeal, in two separate ways. Section 15.4 lets the municipality carry out the repair or demolition itself where an order is not complied with, provides that it is not liable to compensate the owner for doing so, and gives it a lien on the land for what it spent, with priority lien status as described in the Municipal Act, 2001. Clause 15.2 (2) (c) requires the order itself to warn you of that.
Separately, section 15.4.1 (1) lets a municipality require "a person", subject to such conditions as the municipality considers appropriate, to pay an administrative penalty where it is satisfied the person failed to comply with either a section 15.1 by-law or an order. Section 15.4.2 (2) then provides that if the penalty is not paid "within 15 days after the day that it becomes due and payable", the treasurer may add it to the tax roll for a property in the municipality for which all the registered owners are responsible for it, and collect it as municipal taxes. Section 15.4.1 (4) is the trade: once a municipality has required the penalty, "the person shall not be charged with an offence in respect of the same contravention". That is an election by the municipality rather than a protection you can claim, and it does not stop a charge for a different contravention.
The question for a manager is simple: when an order lands, who reads the top of it to work out which statute it came from, and on what day?
More than the agreement suggests, and the largest part of it does not turn on the definition of landlord at all. On charges, section 134 prohibits collecting amounts other than lawful rent and section 17 of O. Reg. 516/06 sets out nine exemptions from it, covering keys and entry devices, a refundable key deposit, NSF costs and settlements, with three of the nine confined to parks, land lease communities and transfers between exempt units. We work the whole list, including the cap on what an NSF cheque can cost a tenant, in what you can charge a tenant for a bounced rent cheque.
Now the exposure, and the first provision does not mention landlords at all. Section 134 (2) provides that "No superintendent, property manager or other person who acts on behalf of a landlord with respect to a rental unit shall, directly or indirectly, with or without the authority of the landlord, do any of the things prohibited under clause (1) (a), (b) or (c) or subsection (1.1) with respect to that rental unit." The words "with or without the authority of the landlord" are doing the work: your manager is prohibited in their own right, and your instructions neither create nor excuse the breach.
Clause 234 (l) then makes it an offence to charge or collect "in contravention of section 134", which is the whole section rather than subsection (1), so it reaches a contravention of subsection (2). And section 17 of the regulation is scoped in its own words to payments "exempt from subsections 134 (1) and (3) of the Act", so the nine exemptions do not reach subsection (2) either. Of the four times the words "property manager" appear anywhere in the Act, this is the only one in a prohibition.
The other three sit in section 47.4, the confidentiality section that follows a tenant's notice of domestic or sexual violence, and only one of those three is operative text rather than a marginal heading. Section 47.4 (1) requires the landlord to keep such a notice confidential, and clause 234 (b.1) makes contravening it an offence. Section 47.4 (5) lets the landlord disclose it to "a superintendent, property manager or any other person who acts on behalf of the landlord with respect to the rental unit" where that person needs to know or requires it to do their job. Section 47.4 (6) then applies subsections (1) to (4) "with necessary modifications" to the person told, so the confidentiality duty and the offence become theirs. That is the second place a manager answers personally, and it is worth asking whether their own file-handling rules cover it.
Section 235 (1) is more direct still: "Any landlord or superintendent, agent or employee of the landlord who knowingly harasses a tenant or interferes with a tenant's reasonable enjoyment of a rental unit or the residential complex in which it is located is guilty of an offence." Section 235 (2) carves out the carrying out of repairs, maintenance and capital improvements, unless the timing or manner of doing them is intended to harass. Since 2026-07-01 the maximum fine under section 238 is $100,000 for a person other than a corporation and $500,000 for a corporation. Those are maximums rather than tariffs.
The limitation periods are not the same across those offences, and the difference is the point. Section 239 (2) gives two years from "the date on which the offence was, or is alleged to have been, committed" for "any other offence under this Act", which is the limb that covers a section 235 harassment charge. An illegal charge is elsewhere. Section 239 (1.2) provides that no proceeding for a clause 234 (l) offence may be commenced "more than two years after the date on which the facts giving rise to the offence came to the attention of the Minister". That clock starts when somebody finds out, so on an illegal charge there is no longstop until they do.
The Board can reach a manager too, and here the clauses have to be read one at a time, because they do not all say the same thing. Paragraphs 2 to 6 of section 29 (1) let a tenant apply about what "the landlord, superintendent or agent of the landlord" has done, covering withheld vital services, substantial interference, harassment, altering the locks and illegal entry, and section 29 (2) gives the tenant one year to do it.
Section 31 (1) then sets out what the Board may order. Clauses (a) and (b) name "the landlord, superintendent or agent" expressly, so a stop order and a payment order for the tenant's damaged property and out-of-pocket expenses can both land on your manager. Clause (c), an abatement of rent, and clause (e), termination of the tenancy, name nobody at all, and clause (f) is "make any other order that it considers appropriate". Only clause (d), the administrative fine "not exceeding the greater of $10,000 and the monetary jurisdiction of the Small Claims Court", is directed at the landlord alone.
Section 31 (2) is the one to read carefully, because its two halves point at different people. Its trigger is conduct by "the landlord, the superintendent or an agent of the landlord" that induced the tenant to vacate. Its remedy, a year of increased rent plus moving and storage costs, is an order that "the landlord pay". So your manager's conduct can produce an order against you. Section 135 separately lets a tenant apply for an order that the landlord, superintendent or agent repay money collected unlawfully.
So an indemnity clause is still worth having, because it decides who ultimately pays. It does not decide who gets named. Ask your prospective manager what their own insurance covers and whether they have ever been named in a section 29 application.
It can move it by five days, because section 191 (3) deems a mailed notice given on the fifth day after mailing while clause 191 (1) (d), leaving it in the mail box, carries no deeming rule at all. That is worth asking about, because it is five days on every notice for a manager who visits the property, and we work the whole section, including the cure in section 191 (2) and the shorter list for a tenant no longer in possession, in how to serve a notice to a tenant in Ontario.
Keep it if you have one unit, in one municipality, with a lease you issued correctly and a tenant who pays. The obligations above are all manageable by one attentive person with a calendar, and none of them needs a company behind it.
Hand it over when the number of clocks exceeds the number of times you are willing to think about them. The ones in this post alone are a 21 day lease delivery duty, a 21 day demand period, a 30 day claw-back window, an annual deposit interest calculation, a 20 day Board review, a 14 day committee appeal, a second 14 day court appeal, a 15 day administrative penalty clock, a five day service deeming rule, and a maintenance standard that changes at a municipal boundary. Missing any one of them costs something specific, and only the two property standards routes arrive with a piece of paper that tells you the deadline.
What the agreement should say, then, is less about the list of services and more about who owns the diary. Ask who runs the deposit interest each year, who checks which maintenance standard applies before an inspector does, who reads a property standards order on the day it lands, and who stands up at the hearing.
And ask what leaves with you, in two parts. The records: the leases, the deposit register with interest paid to date, the rent increase history, the maintenance record, and the tenant contact details. Then the money, which is worth naming item by item: the operating float, any reserve the manager holds, and the last month's rent deposits themselves. Ask whether those sit in a trust account or in the manager's general account, who is named on it, how long a transfer takes on termination, and what the agreement says happens to the interest in the meantime. That whole list is contractual rather than statutory, which means it is the one part of this post the agreement really does decide, so it is worth getting on paper.
KEILTY manages residential rentals across Eastern Ontario for a flat monthly rate per unit, including in Ottawa, and the answers above are the ones we would expect any manager to give you. If your property is a duplex, triplex or small building, our small multi-family page sets out how we run one.
Can a property management agreement change my obligations to my tenant? No. Section 3 (1) of the Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 provides that the Act applies despite any agreement or waiver to the contrary, and section 3 (4) gives the Act priority over every other Act except the Human Rights Code. An agreement can decide who does the work and who pays if something goes wrong, but the statutory duties still attach to the rental unit and to whoever is a landlord under the Act.
Can my property manager represent me at the Landlord and Tenant Board? Only if they are a licensed lawyer or paralegal, or fall inside a Law Society exemption. The Board's Practice Direction on Representation, effective as of March 3, 2022, warns that a property manager may not be allowed to represent a landlord where they are in the business of providing legal services to multiple third parties and fall outside those exemptions, and it lets the Board exclude an unlicensed representative it finds not competent, citing Rule A9. Law Society By-Law 4 contains no property manager exemption.
Can my property manager be charged personally under the Act? Yes, in several places. Section 134 (2) prohibits a property manager from collecting an illegal charge "with or without the authority of the landlord", and clause 234 (l) makes that an offence with no longstop, because section 239 (1.2) runs two years from when the facts came to the Minister's attention. Section 235 (1) reaches an agent or employee who knowingly harasses a tenant, and section 47.4 (6) passes the confidentiality duty to a manager who is told about a tenant's notice of violence.
Who pays interest on a rent deposit in Ontario? The landlord. Section 106 (6) requires interest to be paid to the tenant annually at the guideline rate in effect when payment becomes due, and clause 234 (e) makes failing to pay it an offence. Section 106 (7) lets the landlord deduct the deposit top-up from that interest, and section 106 (9) lets a tenant who is not paid deduct the amount from a later rent payment.
Which maintenance standard applies to my rental property? It depends on your municipality. Section 224 (1) applies O. Reg. 517/06 where there is no applicable municipal property standards by-law. Where there is a full by-law, the by-law governs and an order comes under the Building Code Act, 1992 instead. The twenty degree minimum in section 4 (2) of O. Reg. 516/06 is not gated that way at all, because it runs through the definition of a vital service, but it applies only in the September 1 to June 15 window and not where the tenant can regulate the temperature and the primary heat source can hold 20 degrees.
Weighing up a management agreement and want a second read on what it does and does not cover? Tell us about the property and A.J. Keilty will call you within 20 minutes in business hours.
This post is general information about Ontario residential tenancy law as of 2026-09-17, not legal advice. Legislation, regulations, by-laws and tribunal practice change. For advice on a specific property or situation, speak with a lawyer or licensed paralegal.
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