Renting Out a Whole House in Ontario: Can the Lease Make the Tenant Shovel the Snow and Cut the Grass?

The answer isn’t in the lease clause. It’s in a handful of words the clause has to live with: “maintain,” “ordinary cleanliness,” “undue damage,” “void” — and, in Toronto, “owner or occupant.”

I’m Arthur Zhao, a broker with AZ Real Estate Partners at Bay Street Group Inc., Brokerage. Here is the kind of sentence a lease for a detached house might contain: “Tenant shall maintain the lawn and keep the driveway and walkways clear of snow.” Read it slowly and the problem sits in a single word. “Maintain” is the same verb the Residential Tenancies Act uses when it hands the upkeep of a rental property to the landlord. So rather than argue about who should hold the shovel, this piece reads the clause the way an adjudicator would — one statutory word at a time — and marks, for each word, how far it carries the snow-and-grass question and where it stops. Landlords and tenants are reading the same words, so both are covered here.

“Maintain … in a good state of repair” (RTA s. 20)

Section 20(1) of the Act reads: a landlord “is responsible for providing and maintaining a residential complex, including the rental units in it, in a good state of repair and fit for habitation and for complying with health, safety, housing and maintenance standards.” Section 20(2) adds that this applies even if the tenant knew about the state of non-repair before signing.

How far it reaches: the duty attaches to the whole residential complex, which the Act defines to include “all common areas and services and facilities available for the use of its residents.” According to the Landlord and Tenant Board’s Interpretation Guideline 5 (2018), the complex includes areas such as parking areas and exterior grounds. On that wording, a yard and a driveway look like part of the complex — my reading of the text, not a Board ruling.

Where it stops: section 20 never says “snow” or “lawn.” It tells you the landlord owns the maintenance obligation; it does not tell you whether clearing a fresh snowfall or mowing is maintenance in the s. 20 sense, or something smaller.

“Ordinary cleanliness” (RTA s. 33)

Section 33 is the one duty of upkeep the Act places on the tenant: the tenant “is responsible for ordinary cleanliness of the rental unit, except to the extent that the tenancy agreement requires the landlord to clean it.”

How far it reaches: this is the word a landlord would lean on to argue that routine, recurring chores belong to whoever lives there. Guideline 5 draws its line with the same phrase — a tenant’s lease promise to maintain part of the unit or complex is not enforceable when it goes “beyond ordinary cleanliness and damage.” The carve-out leaves ordinary cleanliness and tenant-caused damage on the tenant’s side — matching ss. 33 and 34.

Where it stops: section 33 speaks of the rental unit, while s. 20 speaks of the residential complex. In a single detached house, where the tenant has the whole lot, the Act doesn’t say which of the two a yard or driveway belongs to for this purpose — that is my reading of the text, not a ruling. And nothing in the Act or the guideline says whether shovelling or mowing counts as “cleanliness.” That is the open question this whole topic turns on.

“Undue damage … wilful or negligent” (RTA s. 34)

Section 34 makes the tenant responsible for repairing “undue damage to the rental unit or residential complex caused by the wilful or negligent conduct of the tenant, another occupant of the rental unit or a person permitted in the residential complex by the tenant.”

How far it reaches: note the scope — unit or complex, so the yard is covered. If a tenant’s conduct, or a guest’s, damages the lawn or the driveway beyond normal use, the repair is the tenant’s under the Act, with or without a lease clause.

Where it stops: the section is about damage caused, not about work left undone. Grass growing or snow falling is not conduct by anyone. Section 34 doesn’t convert routine mowing or clearing into a tenant duty; it only answers who fixes harm the tenant’s side caused.

“Despite any agreement” and “void” (RTA ss. 3 and 4)

Two short provisions decide what a lease clause can and cannot do. Section 3(1): the Act applies to rental units in residential complexes “despite any other Act and despite any agreement or waiver to the contrary.” Section 4(1): “a provision in a tenancy agreement that is inconsistent with this Act or the regulations is void.”

How far it reaches: a signature doesn’t rescue a term that conflicts with the Act, and Guideline 5 states the purpose plainly: “The intention behind sections 20, 29 and 30 is to make landlords responsible for maintaining their complexes, and not to limit their obligations by transferring them by agreement to the tenant.” The guideline’s footnotes point to court authority for that position, including Fleischman v. Grossman Holdings Ltd. (Ont. C.A., 1976) and Burt Dozet Management v. Goharzad (Div. Ct., 2001).

Where it stops: section 4 voids the inconsistent provision, not the lease. And “void” only bites once you know the clause is inconsistent — which brings you straight back to the s. 20 versus s. 33 question. The Guideline also opens by saying a Board Member is not required to follow it and may decide differently on the facts.

“Substantially interferes … correct the omission” (RTA s. 64)

If a clause is ignored, the landlord’s side will look at s. 64, the provision behind the N5 notice. Section 64(1) allows a notice of termination where the conduct of the tenant, an occupant or a guest “substantially interferes with the reasonable enjoyment of the residential complex” by the landlord or another tenant, or “substantially interferes with another lawful right, privilege or interest of the landlord or another tenant.”

How far it reaches: section 64(2) requires the notice to give a termination date no earlier than the 20th day after it is given, to set out the grounds, and to require the tenant, within seven days, “to stop the conduct or activity or correct the omission set out in the notice.” Under s. 64(3), the notice is void if the tenant does so within those seven days. The word “omission” shows the provision can be aimed at something not done, not only something done.

Where it stops: the section doesn’t mention snow or lawns, and it sets a high bar — substantial interference with a lawful right. Whether an unperformed snow or grass clause clears that bar is a question the Board answers on the evidence in front of it. The text gives no advance answer, and I won’t pretend it does.

“Owner” and “occupant” in Toronto’s snow bylaw (Chapter 719)

Here the vocabulary changes, and so does the relationship. Toronto Municipal Code Chapter 719 doesn’t regulate landlord and tenant; it sets duties owed to the City. And it uses two words — owner, occupant — that can catch a tenant directly, whatever the lease says.

According to the City of Toronto’s Municipal Code Chapter 719 (consolidation dated 2022), for the public sidewalk beside the building, s. 719-2A puts the duty on “every owner or occupant of any building,” within 12 hours after snow, rain or hail has stopped (s. 719-2C exempts locations where the City has taken on that sidewalk under its policy). For the private side — steps, landings, walks, driveways, parking spaces, ramps — s. 719-4.1, added by By-law 594-2022, requires the owner or occupant to clear snow and ice within 24 hours of a snowfall.

Section 719-4.1 defines its two words. OCCUPANT: any person over 18 in possession of the property. OWNER includes the person managing the property or receiving the rent, and also “a lessee or occupant of the property who, under the terms of a lease, is required to repair and maintain the property” to the maintenance and occupancy standards.

How far it reaches: an adult tenant in possession fits “occupant” on the plain wording, so the bylaw text reaches the tenant regardless of any lease clause. Every person who contravenes the chapter commits an offence (s. 719-6), punishable under the Provincial Offences Act — whose s. 61, per the editor’s note in the bylaw, caps the fine at $5,000. Where the City clears a sidewalk itself under s. 719-3, its costs are recoverable from the owner of the building, including through s. 386 of the City of Toronto Act, 2006.

Where it stops: the bylaw says who the City can hold to account. It says nothing about who, between landlord and tenant, carries the job under the Residential Tenancies Act. Those are two separate questions with two separate answers, and one doesn’t settle the other.

Chapter 719, side by side

The word that isn’t there: grass

Nothing in the RTA, in Guideline 5, or in Chapter 719 mentions lawns, grass or mowing. (Snow, by contrast, does appear once in the Act — in s. 161, and only for mobile home park roads.) So everything above about “maintain,” “ordinary cleanliness,” “undue damage” and “void” applies to the grass clause in the same way it applies to the snow clause — with the same open question about which side of the cleanliness line it falls on. I haven’t verified a municipal lawn-height or yard-maintenance bylaw for this piece, so I’m not citing one; those rules, like snow-clearing rules outside Toronto, differ by municipality and need to be read in the bylaw of the city where the house sits.