How to Renovate Your Rental without Violating the Lease

One of the main differences between owning and renting a place is that there are limitations to how much you can change in your rental, while you can do anything you want if you own your home.

However, there are still some ways for you to renovate your rental without breaking your lease. That's precisely what we're here today to talk about, so let's take a look at what you can do to stay on the right side of the law and your landlord’s good side.

Which Renovations Can I Do in a Rental Apartment?

When it comes to renovations in rentals, the unfortunate case with most parts of Canada is that they are very hard to pull off. Some would even go as far as to say that they are notoriously difficult. That's because too many local laws exist that are usually in favor of the landlord, at least when it comes to damage and changes within the rental unit.

In many cases, tenants have to do all sorts of things to:

●        Stay within the complex boundaries of the lease

●        Avoid being charged with penalties

●        Avoid losing the security deposit

What's more, you have to be careful with how much money you spend because you are unlikely to stay in the rental long enough to warrant all the money invested. 

With so much trouble involved, most tenants give up and decide to do some simple make-overs or some greening up of the place.

Now, if you truly want to make renovations, you have to stick to changing things that won’t damage the property. What’s more, you need to be careful not to damage the landlord’s items within the property. If the rental comes furnished, you can’t simply throw out stuff or make irreversible changes. You have to be careful that your renovations are minimal and don’t cause damage.

Admittedly, this is hard to achieve and doesn’t offer much wiggle room for sizable changes, but it’s not impossible.

However, if you want to make sure that everything goes well and that you don’t break the lease, all you need to do is talk with the landlord. If you’re already on good terms with the landlord, then this shouldn’t be a problem. All you need to do is be good at convincing them.

You'd be surprised how good landlords can be if you're kind to them. However, renovations are scary for them as they usually fear that the tenant will do damages that will take a lot of work to fix. However, you can still convince them by explaining how your renovations will increase the value of the rental. If you manage to do that and let them know that the renovations will be entirely hassle-free for them, then you'll likely succeed at convincing them to give you permission.

The Bottom Line

As you can see, even though making sizable renovations is next to impossible in rentals, you can still do something. All you need to do is be careful and talk things through with your landlord.