It's Tricky Being a Condo Landlord
Canada's condo market has grown enormously in recent years. As I write this, I'm looking out my window in Ottawa at a condo building that's about 90% complete.
With little new apartment construction in many urban centres, and more people wanting to live downtown, condos have been a popular first investment for many buyers. Many owners live in one for a while and rent it out when they outgrow it. And because newer condos often come with amenities, they're attractive to tenants.
In lots of ways they're a home run for demand. In other ways, they can take more managing, and covering the costs can be trickier.
Condos are different from a house or a multi-unit building. If you rent one out, two sets of rules apply: Ontario's Condominium Act (and your condo corporation's declaration, by-laws and rules), and Ontario's tenancy law, the Residential Tenancies Act. You and your tenant both have to live within both. In practice, juggling them is mostly the landlord's problem.
Here's an example. You're renting your condo out and everything's going smoothly. Then the condo board arranges fire safety inspections in every unit, and the inspectors knock on doors. You didn't mention it to your tenant, who is upset, because tenants are entitled to written notice before someone enters their home for maintenance. Updated October 2026: check Ontario's current rules on the notice needed before entering a tenant's unit. Who's at fault? Communicating condo notices to your tenant promptly avoids the problem entirely.
Condo corporations can have a lot of influence on how a building is lived in. Many have rules on pets, noise, moving and common areas, and may ask tenants to acknowledge them. Updated October 2026: what a condo corporation can require of landlords and tenants, including any deposits, depends on your building's declaration and rules. Give your tenant a copy of the rules with the lease, keep a note that you did, and keep the corporation's notices with the unit's records.
Managing the relationship with a condo board as well as with your tenant takes care. Being organized is most of it.
Are you a condo landlord? We'd love to hear your stories.
Originally published February 28, 2013. Updated October 21, 2026: we revised statements about entry notice and condo-board requirements, removed condo statistics we couldn't source, removed passages and links that had been added without our permission, and removed the original photo because we couldn't confirm its source.