The Ontario Standard Lease, explained section by section

01Who has to use it

The standard lease is a government form. Ontario made it mandatory for most residential tenancy agreements signed on or after April 30, 2018.

It is not for everything. Care homes, sites in mobile home parks and land lease communities, most social and supportive housing, co-operative housing and a few other special tenancies are outside it.

For an ordinary apartment, house, condo or basement unit rented privately, it applies. Using your own template instead does not change the tenancy, but it does hand the tenant a right they can use later.

Section 12.1 of the Residential Tenancies Act adds a timing rule that is easy to miss. The agreement has to be signed by the landlord and the tenant on or before the day the tenant is entitled to occupy the unit. Signing it a week after move-in is already out of order.

02The seventeen sections, in plain words

The form runs in order, and each part is asking a simple question. Here is what each one is actually for.

03The two sections that cause arguments

Section 8 is the deposit. In Ontario the only deposit you may collect is a rent deposit, and it goes toward the last rent period, not toward damage. Writing damage deposit into section 8 does not make one legal.

Section 15 is where most of the trouble lives. Additional terms are allowed, and plenty are useful: how the lawn gets cut, where the bins go, quiet hours in a duplex.

What they cannot do is take away something the Act gives. A term saying the tenant forfeits the deposit if they leave early, or that they must pay a $50 late fee, or that they cannot have guests overnight, does not become enforceable because someone signed it. Section 4 of the Act says a provision that conflicts with the Act is void.

So the test for anything you want to add is short. Does this describe how we will live together, or does it try to change the law? The first is fine. The second is wasted ink and it damages your credibility at a hearing.

04If you never provide it

Suppose the lease was signed on an old template and nobody used the standard form. Section 12.1 gives the tenant a route, and it has a clock on it.

1. 1

   The tenant demands it in writing

   Once during the tenancy, the tenant can demand in writing that you give them a proposed agreement that complies, for the same unit, signed by you.

2. 2

   Day 21

   If at least 21 days have gone by since the demand and you have not complied, the tenant may start withholding rent that becomes due after that 21 day period.

3. 3

   The cap, and the way back

   The most the tenant can withhold is one month's rent, and they must stop withholding the day you comply. You can require the withheld rent to be paid to you only if you comply within 30 days of the date of the first withheld payment.

4. 4

   Past 30 days

   If you comply later than that, the withheld rent is gone. Up to a month's rent, for a free form that takes twenty minutes to fill in.

05What to do before the next tenant signs

How TenantBay helps: it produces the Ontario Standard Lease from the property and tenant records you already entered, both sides sign it electronically, and the signed copy stays in the document vault.

• Download the current form from ontario.ca rather than reusing a PDF from an earlier tenancy. It was last updated in October 2025.
• Fill in every section. Blanks in sections 5 and 6 are where utility arguments start.
• Read your additional terms once more and delete anything that tries to change the Act.
• Sign it on or before the day the tenant is entitled to move in, and give the tenant a signed copy.
• Keep the signed copy where you can find it in five years, not in an email thread.