Managing your rental
How a guaranteed-rent or head-lease program differs from a property management agreement in Ontario, and how to tell which one you are being asked to sign.
By the Tenant.ca teamUpdated 3 min read
Under a property management agreement, you are the landlord and the manager is your agent. The tenant's rent is yours, less the manager's fee and the expenses you approved. If the unit sits empty, you carry the vacancy.
Under a guaranteed-rent program, sometimes structured as a head lease, a company rents your unit from you for a set payment and rents it on to the occupant. The company is the occupant's landlord. You are paid whether or not the unit is occupied, for as long as the company is able to pay.
Both are sold as hands-off ownership, and a monthly deposit looks the same either way. The difference shows when something goes wrong.
A guarantee is a promise from a company, and it is worth what that company's finances are worth. Connect CRE reported that SIREG's program was marketed on the basis that owners receive their monthly rent even when units are vacant, and that the structure came under pressure in September 2026 when the company told investors that market and liquidity challenges were affecting its ability to pay on time.
If a company that owes you guaranteed payments becomes insolvent, you are one of its creditors. The Globe and Mail reported that insolvency notices sent to SIREG owners warn they cannot simply break their agreements and begin collecting rent themselves.
With a management agreement the risks are the ordinary ones of owning a rental: vacancy, repairs and a tenant who falls behind. They are yours, but so is the control.
Ontario's Residential Tenancies Act, 2006 puts the obligations on the landlord: repairs, notices, rent increases, deposits and appearing at the Landlord and Tenant Board. Whoever is the landlord also decides who lives in the unit and holds the tenant's last month's rent deposit.
If you are the landlord, you can see the lease, speak with your tenant and change managers by ending a service contract. If a company is the landlord, you may not know who lives in your unit, and getting your unit back means ending a lease, not replacing an agent.
The title on the first page is not enough. Read for the substance, and ask for written answers.
Look for a named monthly fee, a statement of rent received and expenses paid, your approval before repair money is spent, and a way to see your unit's records without asking for them.
Tenant.ca manages units under a management agreement. You remain the landlord, the fee is $98 plus HST per residential unit per month, repairs come to you as itemized estimates to approve, and your owner portal shows the rent invoices and confirmed payments for each unit.
