An Update on Exterior Maintenance in Lease Agreements

Back in 2023, I wrote about exterior maintenance in residential lease agreements and the use of a "severable contract".

The issue was this: under the Residential Tenancies Act (RTA), landlords are responsible for maintaining “common areas.”

So, any clause in a lease that tries to shift that responsibility to a tenant is unenforceable.

If you wanted the tenant to handle grass and snow, it had to be done through a separate agreement — completely unrelated to the lease.

But the confusion was always around single-family homes.

Even though there are no “common areas,” the LTB was still applying the same exterior maintenance rule across the board.

Which meant the only solid legal advice at the time was: always use a severable contract.

Then in 2024, we got this Court of Appeal decision:

Crete v. Ottawa Community Housing Corporation (2024 ONCA 459) 

And finally, we have a real precedent that distinguishes “common areas” and exclusive-use spaces in the context of the RTA.

So here’s how I now summarize this area of law:

• Common Areas: The landlord is responsible for maintenance under the RTA, and a lease clause shifting that duty to a tenant is unenforceable. (Use a separate agreement)
• Exclusive Use Areas: A lease clause can assign exterior maintenance to the tenant, as long as the area is truly for that tenant’s exclusive use.

To help clarify, here’s the RTA definition:

“exterior common areas” includes roads, pathways, parking areas, garbage storage areas, grounds for the use of tenants and, in a mobile home park or land lease community, the sites on which homes are situated

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