Garage Excluded, One Door Locked: Renting a Whole House When the Ontario Landlord Keeps Space Back

A detached garage, a locked bedroom and a basement storage corner raise three different entry questions. Here is how each one sits under the Residential Tenancies Act, and what to write down before anyone signs.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a Toronto real estate Broker. Here is a moment that comes up at viewings: the house fits, the price works, and then the tenant notices one line in the listing or the draft lease — garage excluded — or tries a door upstairs and finds it locked. The landlord explains, casually, that they are keeping that space for their own things.

That one line raises questions nobody has answered yet. Who can open that door, and when? Does the landlord have to give notice to come and get a box of tools in March? What if the only way to the storage is down the tenant’s basement stairs? The answers change with the kind of space being held back, so this piece goes through the three common kinds one at a time, and only then turns to what a tenant can do if the arrangement goes wrong.

Start with what the lease says is rented

The Residential Tenancies Act defines a rental unit as any living accommodation used or intended for use as rented residential premises, and a residential complex as the building or related group of buildings in which rental units are located, including all common areas and services and facilities available for residents’ use (s.2(1)). The Act has no section dealing specifically with a landlord who rents out a house but keeps part of it. So the first question, what exactly was rented, is answered mainly by the lease.

On Ontario’s standard lease (Form 2229E), three places carry that answer. Section 2, “Rental Unit”, has a line for the unit description and a separate field for the number and description of parking spaces. Section 6, “Services and Utilities”, has a yes/no box for “Additional storage space”. Section 15, “Additional Terms”, is where the details go, and the form itself warns that an additional term cannot take away a right or responsibility under the Act.

Type 1: a detached garage, or one with its own entrance

This is the cleanest arrangement. If the landlord can walk from the street to the garage and open it without passing through any part of the house or yard the tenant has rented, a visit to the garage may not be an entry into the rental unit at all, and s.27’s notice rules are written for entry into a rental unit.

That is my reading, not a settled rule, and it has two limits. First, the Act protects the tenant’s reasonable enjoyment of the rental unit or the residential complex in which it is located (s.22), so frequent or disruptive trips can still matter even where no door to the unit is opened. Second, if the route crosses a backyard or side gate that the lease gives to the tenant, the landlord is back to the same question as an indoor space.

For the lease: name the garage in Section 2 as excluded, deal with the driveway and parking in the parking field so nobody assumes the garage came with it, and say in Section 15 which path the landlord uses.

Type 2: a locked room inside the house

Here the landlord cannot reach the room without walking through the tenant’s home. Under s.25, a landlord may enter a rental unit only in accordance with s.26 or s.27. Section 27(1) allows entry on written notice given at least 24 hours ahead for five reasons: repairs or work, a viewing by a potential mortgagee or insurer, a Condominium Act inspection, a reasonable state-of-repair inspection, and any other reasonable reason for entry specified in the tenancy agreement. Section 27(2) adds viewings by a potential purchaser.

Fetching the landlord’s own belongings is not on that list. In my view, that leaves three routes: the lease names it as a reasonable reason under para. 5 and the landlord gives proper notice; the tenant consents at the time of entry (s.26(1)(b)); or there is an emergency (s.26(1)(a)). Whatever route is used, a s.27 notice has to state the reason, the day, and a time between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m. (s.27(3)).

For the lease: describe the room by location, record who holds the keys, and spell out the reason for entry in Section 15 rather than leaving it to a conversation.

Type 3: a storage area reached through the tenant’s space

The basement corner behind a partition, the crawl space off the laundry room, the closet under the stairs. The stored items belong to the landlord, but the route belongs to the tenant: the landlord has to go through rooms the tenant rents to get there.

I treat this exactly like Type 2 for entry purposes, since walking down the tenant’s stairs is going into the rental unit whatever the destination. The difference is practical. These areas are often unmarked, sometimes unlocked, and easy for both sides to drift into using. That makes the written description more important, not less.

For the lease: mark the boundary (a photo or a simple sketch attached to the lease helps), state in Section 15 that the tenant may not use it, and make sure Section 6’s “Additional storage space” box matches reality. If it says “Yes”, say which storage the tenant actually gets.

An exclusion written into the lease vs. one only agreed verbally

Where the arrangement tends to break down for the tenant

• Drop-ins without notice. A landlord who has been storing things there for years may assume they can come and go. For an indoor space, the Act does not allow that outside s.26 and s.27.
• A lease clause that waives notice. A term saying the landlord may enter the house at any time to reach storage is, in my reading, inconsistent with s.25 to s.27. The Act applies despite any agreement to the contrary (s.3(1)), and an inconsistent term is void (s.4(1)).
• Consent by silence. Section 26(1)(b) covers consent given at the time of entry. A signature months earlier is not the same thing.
• Fuzzy boundaries. If the lease just says “storage excluded”, neither side can say for sure where the tenant’s basement ends.
• Frequency creep. Even with proper notice each time, a pattern of repeated visits can raise a reasonable-enjoyment issue under s.22.

What a tenant can do if it goes wrong

Start by putting the concern in writing to the landlord, with dates. If that does not settle it, the Landlord and Tenant Board’s tenant application T2 (Application about Tenant Rights) covers the two grounds most likely to apply here: substantial interference with reasonable enjoyment of the rental unit or residential complex (s.29(1), para. 3) and illegal entry into the rental unit (s.29(1), para. 6).

According to the Residential Tenancies Act (2006, current consolidation), no such application may be made more than one year after the day the alleged conduct occurred (s.29(2)). If the Board finds the landlord did one of those things, s.31(1) lets it order the landlord not to do it again, order payment of the tenant’s reasonable costs and out-of-pocket expenses, order a rent abatement, order an administrative fine to the Board of up to the greater of $10,000 and the Small Claims Court’s monetary limit, terminate the tenancy, or make any other order it considers appropriate.

These are facts about the process, not a prediction of any outcome. If you are in a dispute, speak to a lawyer or paralegal, or contact the LTB directly.

Before signing: two things to settle

Use this with the standard lease open in front of you.