Ontario's NEW standard lease starting April 30th 2018- Important info for Ottawa Landlords and Tenants

Ontario's NEW standard lease starting April 30th 2018- Important info for Ottawa Landlords and Tenants

There is a new Standard Lease form that must be used for all new Residential Rental agreements as of April 30th 2018 which includes property management companies as well as individual landlords.  The Ontario Government has put this new standard lease into affect to make the lease in a easier to understand languague to help with the following:

• landlords and renters understand their rights and responsibilities
• reduce illegal terms in leases and misunderstandings caused by verbal tenancy agreements
• reduce the need for Landlord and Tenant Board hearings to resolve disputes

Who must use the NEW standard lease?

• single and semi-detached houses
• apartment buildings
• condominiums
• secondary units (for example, basement apartments)

A standard lease is not required for tenancies that have special rules or partial exemptions such as:

• care homes (for example, retirement homes)
• mobile home parks and land lease communities
• social and supportive housing exempt from the rent rules under the RTA (for example, housing subject to operating agreements under certain programs or where the tenant receives publically funded rent-geared-to-income assistance)

The Standard lease will have mandatory fields that must be filled out on every lease which include things such as :

• the names of the landlord and renter
• the tenancy term, rent amount and services included
• other terms which landlords and renters can agree to, such as rent deposits, key deposits, smoking rules, and renter's insurance

There will be a section for Optional Additional Terms that allow Landlords and Tenants to agree to terms unique to that specfic unit but those Additional terms that are added and are not consistent with a mandatory term of the lease , are

considered void and unenforceable. 

Some more notes about the rules regarding the Standard Lease:

If you sign a lease on or after April 30, 2018, it must be a standard lease.

If you sign a lease on or after April 30, 2018 that does not use the standard lease, renters can ask the landlord for one in writing. The landlord must provide one within 21 days.

Renters cannot ask for a standard lease if they signed a lease before April 30, 2018, unless they and their landlord negotiate a new lease agreement with new terms on or after this date.

Additionally, renters cannot ask for a standard lease if they sign a fixed-term lease before April 30, 2018, and it renewed automatically to a month-to-month tenancy after April 30, 2018.

If a landlord fails to provide the standard lease within 21 days after a renter has asked for it in writing, the renter may withhold one month's rent.

If the landlord fails to provide the standard lease within 30 days after the renter has begun withholding rent, the renter does not have to repay the one month's rent. Please note, you cannot withhold more than one month’s rent and you must continue paying your rent for the term of your lease, even if your landlord never gives you the standard lease. However, if a standard lease is not provided, special rules allow you to end your fixed-term lease early.

Landlords and renters can choose to use the standard lease before April 30, 2018. However, the rules requiring the standard lease will only be in effect starting on this date.

If you have any questions about the new Standard Lease in Ontario then please reach out and I would love to help. There is a copy of the new standard lease attached to this blog post that you can download. 

You can find more information on Ministry of Housing website in the link below:

http://www.mah.gov.on.ca/Page18704.aspx

You can also see more info on the website of the Landlord and Tenant Board website: 

http://www.sjto.gov.on.ca/ltb/

Your Ottawa Realtor - Sorin Vaduva

sorin@capitalrealestate.ca  -    613-262-9562