Renting Out a Condo? You Owe One Duty an Ordinary Landlord Doesn’t: Section 83 of the Condominium Act

Signing the lease and knowing the LTB is the ordinary-landlord job. A condo landlord carries a second rulebook on top — the Condominium Act — and section 83 is the heart of that extra layer.

I’m Arthur Zhao. After years of handling landlord files, I keep watching condo owners fall into the same blind spot: they treat “being a landlord” as signing a solid lease and knowing the LTB — and they do that part well, standard lease, first-and-last collected — only to get a letter from the condo management office months later asking, “when did you rent this unit out, and why weren’t we told?”

Here’s the gap: an ordinary landlord answers to one statute (the Residential Tenancies Act, which governs you and your tenant). A condo landlord answers to a second one on top — the Condominium Act, which governs you and the corporation. That extra layer lives largely in section 83. This piece walks s.83 clause by clause: how many days you have, who you report to, what you have to hand over, the parts owners miss most, and what it actually costs to skip it. The general RTA landlord duties aren’t the subject here — I’ve put those in the related reading at the end.

Two rulebooks, not one

Renting out a condo drops you into two rulebooks at once, and most owners only see the first.

Rulebook one is the RTA (Residential Tenancies Act). It governs you and your tenant — the standard lease, deposits, rent increases, and disputes at the Landlord and Tenant Board. Every Ontario landlord lives under it, condo or freehold, no difference.

Rulebook two is the Condominium Act, 1998. It governs you and the corporation. When you bought, you didn’t just buy a unit — you became a member of the corporation, and the moment you hand your unit to someone who isn’t the owner, the corporation is entitled to know who moved in and to make sure they’re bound by its rules too. Section 83 is the core duty this rulebook puts on landlords.

This article stays inside rulebook two, on s.83. The generic landlord duties, the standard lease, the LTB process — I’m not repeating those here; see the related reading.

Ordinary landlord vs condo landlord: where the extra layer sits

What section 83 actually asks of you

s.83 says three things: when you lease or renew, notify the corporation and hand over some material; when the tenancy ends without renewal, notify it again; and the corporation keeps a record of what it receives. Simple in outline — but each piece carries a hard “who, what, by when.” Here’s the whole lifecycle on one timeline.

The 10-day duty, unpacked

The clock starts the day you enter into the lease or the renewal, and the law gives you 10 days. Inside that window, s.83(1) asks for three things:

(a) Tell the corporation the unit is leased. A written notice to management that the unit has gone into a rented state — the starting point of the whole duty.
(b) Give the corporation the tenant’s name, your address, and either a copy of the lease or the prescribed summary. Your address matters so the corporation can reach you later; the lease-copy-or-summary is a genuine either/or (more on that next).
(c) Give the tenant the declaration, by-laws and rules. Not to the corporation — to your tenant. The corporation’s rules bind your tenant too, but only once the tenant actually has them can they be expected to follow them.

Lease copy or prescribed summary? Don’t assume you must hand over the whole lease

This is the first place the common summaries get it wrong: s.83(1)(b) does not force you to surrender the entire lease. You may give a copy of the lease — or a summary in the form prescribed by the Minister. It’s an either/or.

That summary has a standard government layout (its header reads “Summary of Lease or Renewal, clause 83(1)(b)”). I’ve looked at the actual form: it asks for the tenant’s name, phone, the lease start and end dates, any renewal options, the rental payments, and a line where the owner confirms the tenant was given the declaration, by-laws and rules.

For many owners the summary is the cleaner route — you’re not filing every private term of the lease with the board. One caveat, though: the prescribed summary itself has a “rental payments” field, so “use the summary and disclose no rent” is a misconception. Pick whichever route you like — but either way the corporation has to receive the items s.83(1)(b) requires.

The two triggers owners miss: renewals, and move-outs

Beyond copy-versus-summary, two traps catch people:

Renewals trigger the same 10-day duty. Plenty of owners think “I reported it the first time, renewals don’t count.” They do — s.83(1) says “leases or renews.” Sign a new fixed term and the 10-day clock restarts. (A brand-new tenant, of course, means running the whole set again.)

Ending the tenancy without renewal also needs a 10-day written notice. This half — s.83(2) — is the one that gets dropped entirely. The tenant moves out, the lease ends and isn’t renewed, you assume you’re done; but the corporation’s leased-unit record still shows your unit, and you owe it a written notice that the unit is no longer leased, again within 10 days.

Why the corporation tracks this — and where it surfaces on your status certificate

s.83(3) requires the corporation to keep a record of the notices it receives (the industry calls it the List of Lease Notifications). That ledger has a downstream consequence visible to buyers and lenders:

Ontario’s status certificate (Form 13) discloses whether the corporation was notified under s.83 that any unit was leased in the fiscal year before the certificate’s date, and how many. In other words, whether you reported as required settles into the paper trail of your unit and the building — something a buyer’s due diligence or a lender’s review can later see. That’s exactly why boards and management don’t treat s.83 notices casually.

Skip it and there’s no “ticket” — but a costlier outcome

Straight up: the Condominium Act attaches no fixed, per-day fine to breaching s.83. So don’t expect a few-hundred-dollar ticket in the mail — the real exposure is a different, and potentially much larger, one.

Under the Act itself: the corporation (and an owner, occupier, mortgagee and others) may apply to the Superior Court of Justice under s.134(1) for a compliance order forcing you to comply with the Act and the corporation’s declaration, by-laws and rules. Under s.134(3) the court can order you to pay damages for the non-compliance plus the applicant’s costs of obtaining the order; and under s.134(5), once the corporation obtains such a damages or costs award, that amount — together with the corporation’s additional actual costs of getting the order — is added to your unit’s common expenses.

Here’s the part owners don’t price in: if you then fall into arrears on those common expenses, the corporation gets a lien on your unit under s.85(1) (for the unpaid amount, interest and reasonable legal costs), and under s.86(1) that lien takes priority over virtually every registered and unregistered encumbrance on the unit — even one that existed before the lien arose — which ordinarily includes your mortgage.
But that priority is not absolute — two limits to remember: (1) the lien expires three months after the default that gave rise to it unless the corporation registers a certificate of lien (in the Minister’s prescribed form) within that window (s.85(2)); and (2) s.86(1) carves out exceptions (certain Crown claims, municipal and education taxes and the like), and under s.86(5) the corporation loses its priority over an encumbrance if it fails to give that encumbrancer the required notice.

One more fork in the remedy path: s.134(2.4) says s.134 does not apply to a matter a person may take to the Condominium Authority Tribunal (CAT) under s.1.36 — so whether a dispute goes to court or to the CAT depends on its type; matters within the CAT’s remit must go there.

(A softer cost, too: if you never gave the tenant the s.83(1)(c) documents, enforcing the corporation’s rules against a rule-breaking tenant gets harder — and the owner in the middle usually wears it.)

A condo landlord’s s.83 checklist (and the fine print)

1. Start the clock. The day you sign or renew, set yourself a 10-day reminder.
2. Notify the corporation in writing that the unit is leased.
3. Hand over the right material: tenant’s name + your address + a lease copy or the prescribed summary (either one, both carrying the s.83(1)(b) items).
4. Give the tenant the declaration, by-laws and rules — keep proof of delivery.
5. Report the exit. Lease ends without renewal → notify the corporation in writing within 10 days so it clears the record.
6. Keep records. Save every notice and delivery confirmation — if a dispute ever arises, you’ll want to show you did what s.83 requires.

A compliance note: this is general information, not legal advice tailored to your situation. For how s.83 applies to you, the specific declaration, by-laws and rules of your corporation, and any non-compliance, consult a condominium lawyer or your property management company; the statutory references here follow the current Ontario e-Laws version.

Arthur Zhao

Real Estate Broker · FRI · ABR · SRS · PSA · MCNE · E-PRO · CLHMS & GUILD Elite · REAIS

VP & Branch Manager, Bay Street Group Inc.

Get expert answers on buying, selling, and renting in the GTA