Ontario Residential Tenancy Act 2024: What Landlords Must Include in Every Lease

If you are an Ontario landlord renting out a residential unit in 2024, you do not get to write your own lease from scratch. The Residential Tenancies Act (RTA, 2006), together with Ontario Regulation 9/18, dictates the exact form, mandatory disclosures, and enforceable clauses every lease must contain. Getting this wrong is not just bad practice — it can cost you a month's rent and gut your ability to enforce the agreement at the Landlord and Tenant Board (LTB).

1. Use Form 2229 — the Standard Lease — without exception

For most private residential tenancies first entered into on or after April 30, 2018, you must use the current version of the Residential Tenancy Agreement (Standard Form of Lease), commonly called Form 2229. If you provide a non-standard lease and the tenant requests the standard form in writing, you have 21 days to deliver it. Miss the deadline and the tenant can withhold one month's rent.

2. Identify every party and the rental unit

Section 1 of Form 2229 requires the legal name of every landlord (including any property management company), the legal name of every adult tenant, the full address of the unit, and any included parking spaces, storage lockers, or other ancillary spaces.

3. Contact information and address for service

Section 2 requires an address for giving notices to the landlord and, where applicable, an email address you have agreed in writing to use for service of documents. Keep this current — improperly served notices routinely fail at the LTB.

4. Term, rent, and what's included

Section 3 fixes whether the tenancy is month-to-month or for a specific term, and Section 4 sets the rent amount, due date, and payment method. Section 5 itemizes which services and utilities are included (heat, hydro, water, internet, parking) and which are not. Vague "all in" or "tenant pays utilities" language is not enough.

5. Last month's rent — the only legal deposit

Section 7 deals with the rent deposit. You can collect a last month's rent deposit only, capped at one month's rent, and you must pay the tenant interest annually at the guideline rate. Damage, key, pet, or cleaning deposits are illegal and create an immediate compliance problem if listed.

6. Smoking, pets, and other rules

You may add reasonable rules in Section 10 and the Appendix, but remember: no-pets clauses are void under section 14 of the RTA. You may prohibit smoking, restrict alterations, and set quiet hours, but you cannot waive a tenant's statutory rights.

7. Maintenance, repairs, and entry

The lease must reflect that the landlord is responsible for maintaining the unit in a good state of repair regardless of the tenant's awareness of any defect at move-in. Entry requires 24 hours' written notice between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. for a specified purpose, except in emergencies or with the tenant's consent at the time.

8. Mandatory information sheet

Form 2229 includes an Information Sheet — pages that summarize key tenant and landlord rights, rent increases, and how to reach the LTB. You must give the tenant the complete form, including this sheet, not just the signature pages.

9. Additional terms in the Appendix

Anything you add in the Appendix (Section 15) must comply with the RTA. Common landlord additions — tenant insurance, utility allocation, parking surcharges — are fine if reasonable. Anything that conflicts with the RTA is void, even if signed.

10. Signatures, dates, and a signed copy to the tenant

Every adult tenant and every landlord must sign and date the lease. You must give a signed copy to the tenant within 21 days of signing. Failing to do so gives the tenant the right to withhold rent until delivery.

Check your own lease before you hand it out

Even experienced landlords inherit clauses from older templates that no longer comply with the RTA. Running your own lease through a LeaseScore check at leasescore.co takes 60 seconds and flags every clause that is unenforceable, missing, or out of line with the 2024 guideline — before a tenant or the LTB does it for you.