Owner's guide
Ask what the fee covers and what it does not, who answers the phone at 2am, how trust money is held, how quickly a vacancy gets filled, and what happens if you want to leave. A manager who answers those five plainly will usually answer the other seven well too.
Ontario does not licence residential property managers. There is no exam, no registry and no regulator to check a company against, so the interview is the whole of your due diligence. These are the twelve questions that separate a manager who will protect your asset from one who will simply collect rent and forward it.
By A.J. Keilty, President, KEILTY Realty Management. KEILTY has managed rental property from Kingston since 2003. If you would rather ask these questions out loud than read them, call 613-545-3322 or write to Hello@keilty.com.
Because management fees across Eastern Ontario cluster in a narrow band, and the difference between two quotes is usually smaller than the cost of one bad month. A single avoidable vacancy on a Kingston rental house costs more than a year of the gap between a cheap manager and an expensive one. So does one eviction handled badly, one furnace replaced without three quotes, or one tenant placed without proper screening.
Frankly, the fee is the part of the arrangement that is easiest to put on a page and hardest to get wrong. Everything expensive happens in the parts nobody quotes: how fast a unit turns over, how carefully a tenant is chosen, how maintenance is bought, and how clearly you are told what happened. If you want the mechanics of how Ontario managers price the work, that is a separate subject and it is covered in how property management is priced in Ontario. This page is about everything the price does not tell you.
They are in the order a careful owner would ask them, money first, then performance, then the relationship. Under each one is why it is worth asking and what a straight answer sounds like.
What exactly does the management fee cover, and what is billed on top of it?
The fee is the headline. The list of exclusions is the real price. Leasing, tenant placement, renewals, inspections, project supervision, year-end statements, notices and court attendance are all things that some managers include and others bill separately. Two quotes that look the same can differ by thousands over a year depending on where those lines fall.
A good answer: a written schedule that names every chargeable item, not a verbal assurance that extras are rare.
Who holds the rent between the tenant paying it and me receiving it, and in what kind of account?
Ontario has no statutory trust accounting requirement for residential property managers. Your rent may sit in a dedicated trust account, in a general operating account, or commingled with the manager's own funds, and all three are lawful. The only thing that protects you is what the management agreement says.
A good answer: funds held separately from the company's operating money, with the account arrangement written into the agreement and a named date each month on which your funds are transferred.
When do I get paid each month, and what is held back?
A predictable transfer date lets you run your own numbers. A floating one means your cash flow depends on when somebody closes the books. Most managers hold a float for emergencies, which is reasonable, but the amount should be fixed and disclosed rather than discretionary.
A good answer: a fixed day of the month and a stated reserve amount you agreed to in advance.
What is the vacancy rate and the arrears rate across the units you manage right now?
This is the single most revealing question on the list, and the one most often deflected. A manager who tracks their own portfolio can answer it from memory. A manager who answers with a regional average, an industry figure or a target is telling you they do not measure it.
A good answer: two current numbers for their own book, with an explanation of which buildings are dragging them and why.
How long does a unit typically sit empty between tenancies, and who pays for the marketing?
Turnover time is where most of the money in rental ownership is won or lost. A week of avoidable vacancy on a market rent recurs every time a tenant leaves. Ask whether photography, listing syndication and showings are included or billed, and whether the unit is listed before the outgoing tenant leaves or after.
A good answer: listed before the unit is empty, a stated typical turnover window, and marketing included in the fee.
What is your tenant screening process, and what disqualifies an applicant?
Screening is the decision that determines the next several years of the asset. Ask for the actual steps: credit check, employment verification, previous landlord reference, identification, and how the Ontario standard lease is executed. Ask also what the manager is not permitted to ask, because an untrained screener creates human rights exposure that lands on you as the owner.
A good answer: a written process, a named decision maker, and a clear description of what the law permits them to ask and verify.
What happens at 2am when a pipe bursts, and who answers?
After-hours response separates a management company from an answering service. Ask who physically picks up, whether it is a staff member or a call centre, what the dispatch tree is, and the dollar threshold above which they must reach you before spending.
A good answer: a named person or rotation, a real escalation path to trades who answer at night, and a spending limit written in the agreement.
How do you buy maintenance, and do you mark it up?
Some managers take a percentage of every invoice. Some own the trade company doing the work. Some tender anything above a threshold. None of these is automatically wrong, but you should know which one you are buying, because it changes who benefits when the furnace is replaced rather than repaired.
A good answer: disclosed markup or none, disclosed related-party trades, and competitive quotes above an agreed dollar figure.
What reporting will I receive, how often, and can I see a sample?
A summary is not an account. You want a monthly owner statement that reconciles rent in and money out, a rent roll, the invoices behind each expense, and a year-end package your accountant can file from. Ask for a real one with the names removed before you sign anything.
A good answer: a sample statement handed over without hesitation. The full standard is set out in what financial reporting you should get from an Ontario manager.
Who actually handles my property day to day, and how many units do they carry?
You are hiring a person, not a logo. The owner of the firm may sell the engagement and never touch it again. Ask for the name of the manager assigned, how many doors sit on their desk, and what happens to your property when that person is on holiday or leaves the company.
A good answer: a named manager, a portfolio size they will state out loud, and a named backup.
How do you handle arrears, notices and the Landlord and Tenant Board?
Ontario tenancy process is unforgiving about form and timing. A notice served on the wrong form or counted from the wrong date restarts the clock, and the delay is paid for by you. Ask at what day of the month arrears are chased, who prepares and serves notices, who attends a hearing, and whether attendance is included or billed.
A good answer: a fixed arrears timetable, in-house preparation of notices, and a clear statement of what Board attendance costs.
How does this agreement end, and what do I get back when it does?
Ask about the notice period, any termination fee, whether the term renews automatically, and most importantly what is handed over: leases, tenant ledgers, deposit balances, keys, inspection records and contact details. An owner who cannot leave cleanly is not a client, and a manager who is comfortable with a clean exit is usually comfortable because they rarely face one.
A good answer: a short notice period, no exit penalty, and a written list of everything that transfers back to you.
Take an owner who lives in Ottawa and owns a single detached rental in Kingston's west end. She interviews two managers. The first quotes a lower monthly fee and says leasing is billed separately at one month's rent. The second quotes slightly higher and includes renewals, inspections and year-end reporting, billing only a lease-up fee when a new tenant is placed.
In a year when nothing happens, the first manager is cheaper and the difference is small. In a year when the tenant gives notice, the picture inverts: the first manager charges the placement fee, bills the inspection, bills the year-end package, and the unit sits empty while the listing is prepared after move-out. The second lists before the unit is vacant and includes the rest. The gap between the two quotes was never the number that mattered.
Those figures are not published here because they vary by manager and by property, and a number invented for an illustration is worse than none. The point is structural: the quoted fee is a small, predictable cost, and turnover is a large, lumpy one. Question 1 and question 5 together tell you more about the next five years than the monthly rate ever will.
Questions 1, 5, 6 and 12. With one door, your entire return depends on who lives there and how long the unit stays empty between tenants, and your exposure if the relationship sours is that you cannot easily leave. Fee structure matters less than it appears, because a flat per-unit arrangement on a single property is simple to forecast either way. How KEILTY structures single-property management is set out on the single-family rental management page.
The question owners of one property most often skip is number 10. They assume that the person who answered the phone is the person who will manage the house, and six months later they are dealing with somebody they have never met who carries four hundred other doors.
Questions 2, 4, 8 and 9. Once there are several units, the money moving through the manager's hands each month is large enough that how it is held genuinely matters, and maintenance buying becomes the largest controllable expense in the building. Arrears across a dozen tenancies also behave differently from arrears on one: they need a timetable rather than attention. The service structure for buildings of this size is on the small multi-family page.
Owners of small buildings also tend to underweight question 11. One tenancy matter handled slowly in a six-unit building can consume more margin than a year of fee differences, and the cost is invisible until the hearing date arrives.
No. Ontario licences real estate salespeople and brokers through RECO, and it licences condominium managers, but there is no licence, registry or regulator for residential rental property management. Anyone may offer the service. That is precisely why the interview carries so much weight: there is no credential to check in place of asking.
Two or three is usually enough, and more than that tends to produce confusion rather than clarity. Ask all of them the same twelve questions in the same order and write the answers down. The differences that matter show up in which questions get a direct answer and which get a brochure, not in the quoted rate.
A manager who cannot or will not state their current vacancy and arrears numbers. Every other soft answer can be explained by a bad memory or an unusual property. That one means the portfolio is not being measured, and a portfolio that is not measured is not being managed.
Yes, with the caveat that a manager will give you their happiest client. A more useful request is to ask for an owner whose property had a difficult year, a long vacancy or a tenancy dispute. How a manager performs in a bad year is the thing you are actually buying, and a manager willing to put you in touch with that owner is telling you something a reference letter cannot.
Yes, and it is worth doing every couple of years. Most owners never revisit the arrangement after signing, and management agreements tend to renew quietly. Working through the list with your current manager is a reasonable annual exercise, and if the answers have drifted from what you were told at the start, that is useful to know before the next renewal rather than after.
Start with a free rental evaluation. A.J. Keilty calls you back within 20 minutes in business hours, Monday to Friday 8:30 to 5:30, or at 8:30 the next business day, and the written evaluation follows within 24 hours of that call. Bring the list. No obligation, and no pressure to change anything.
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