Audience: Tenants who already signed and are worried they agreed to bad terms

You signed the lease three months ago. You were relieved to find a place, the landlord said “sign by tomorrow or we move to the next applicant,” so you signed. You didn’t read all 15 pages. Nobody does.

Now you’re reading about illegal lease clauses online, and you’re realizing some of what you signed doesn’t sound right. A $400 carpet cleaning fee at move-out. A complete ban on subletting. A waiver that says the landlord isn’t liable even for their own negligence.

The question eating at you: did I agree to this?

No. You didn’t. Not legally.

Illegal clauses are void — whether you signed them or not

This is the single most important thing a Canadian renter can know, and almost nobody knows it.

In Alberta, the RTA states in section 3(2) that every written lease must include this statement in print larger than the rest: “The tenancy created by this agreement is governed by the Residential Tenancies Act and if there is a conflict between this agreement and the Act, the Act prevails.”

Read that last part again. The Act prevails.

Ontario’s RTA says the same thing in section 3(1): the Act applies despite any agreement or waiver to the contrary. BC says it in section 5: a term of a tenancy agreement that is inconsistent with the Act is void.

Your signature doesn’t override the law. A lease is a contract, but it’s a contract that operates within the boundaries of legislation that was specifically designed to protect you. Anything outside those boundaries is void. Full stop.

What “void” actually means in practice

A void clause doesn’t just mean “a court might not enforce it someday.” It means the clause has no legal effect, right now, as if it was never written.

If your landlord tries to enforce a void clause — say, deducting $400 from your deposit for professional carpet cleaning when you left the unit in reasonable condition — you can dispute it. You don’t need to prove the clause is void. It already is. The landlord would need to prove they have a legal basis for the deduction that exists outside the lease, in the actual statute.

In Alberta, the standard is “reasonably clean” at move-out. Not “professionally cleaned.” RTDRS adjudicators have ruled this consistently. A lease can’t raise that standard above what the law sets.

Real examples from real Edmonton leases

We analyzed two actual leases from Edmonton. Between them, we found 23 clauses that violate the Alberta RTA.

Here’s what those tenants signed — and what was void the moment they signed it:

A complete liability waiver, including landlord negligence. The lease said: “The Tenant hereby waives and releases the Landlord from any liability whatsoever… including loss due to negligence or fault of the Landlord.” This means if the landlord’s negligence causes a flood in your unit, the lease says tough luck. The RTA says otherwise — section 16(c) requires landlords to maintain premises to minimum standards. You cannot waive a statutory obligation by contract.

Every charge deemed as “rent.” A subtle clause that reclassified every fee — late fees, admin charges, NSF penalties — as “rent.” Why? Because unpaid rent triggers a 14-day eviction notice under the RTA. By calling a disputed $25 admin fee “rent,” the landlord could threaten eviction over it. That’s a misuse of the eviction mechanism.

A flat statement that the lease “does not automatically renew.” Factually false under Alberta law. Section 15 of the RTA says no notice is required to end a fixed-term tenancy, but section 13 means the tenancy converts to periodic automatically if neither party acts. The lease cannot eliminate a statutory right.

All three of those clauses were void the moment the tenants signed. The tenants just didn’t know it.

So what should you do right now?

First, don’t panic. Having illegal clauses in your lease doesn’t mean you’re in danger — it means your landlord included terms they can’t enforce. That’s their problem, not yours.

Second, find out exactly which clauses are void. That’s where knowledge becomes power.

If your landlord tries to deduct unauthorized fees from your deposit at move-out, you’ll want to know — before the argument starts — that the fee has no statutory authority, which section of the RTA backs you up, and what the RTDRS has ruled in similar cases.

That’s exactly what our analysis does. You upload your lease, we check every clause against the verified legal rules for your province, and you get a report with specific findings, statute citations, and recommended next steps.

Think of it this way: your landlord had a lawyer draft that lease. Now it’s your turn to understand what’s actually in it.

The real cost of not knowing

The two leases we analyzed had combined financial exposure of over $4,000 in fees with no legal basis. Late fees, cleaning charges, lease-break penalties, lock-change fees, NSF penalties — all included in “standard” leases handed to tenants who were told to sign or lose the unit.

Most of that money would have been deducted from security deposits at move-out if the tenants hadn’t known their rights. Some of it was already being charged monthly.

$10 to check every clause in your lease against the law. That’s less than the cost of a single unauthorized NSF fee.

→ Find out what’s actually enforceable at analyzer.rentalproof.us

This article is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. If you have a dispute with your landlord, consult the RTDRS (Alberta), LTB (Ontario), or RTB (British Columbia), or contact a licensed lawyer in your province.

I Signed the Lease. Am I Stuck With the Illegal Clauses?