Quebec Lease Sections F and G: What You Declare at Signing

Two lettered boxes on the Quebec lease decide whether the rent you signed is the rent you keep. Section G asks what the last tenant paid. Section F applies to new buildings and asks what you could charge over the next five years. Both get filled in at signing, both take about a minute, and leaving either one blank hands your tenant a longer window to challenge you at the Tribunal administratif du logement.

Section G: the lowest rent paid in the last 12 months

Section G is where you declare the lowest rent paid for that dwelling in the 12 months before the lease starts, or the rent the Tribunal set for it during that same period. The TAL is direct about this: the lessor must give the new lessee that notice in writing, and section G of the lease form is where it goes. The TAL lease form has been mandatory since September 1, 1996, so this is not an addendum you can decline to use.

Notice what the number is. The lowest rent paid, not the last rent you charged, and not what you were asking. If the rent moved mid-year, the lower figure is the one that belongs in the box.

If nobody paid rent during those 12 months, section G is not where you land. The notice then states the last rent paid and the date it was paid. The Tribunal publishes model notices for exactly this, including Notice to a new lessee (last rent paid).

The duty follows a sublease down. A tenant who sublets owes the subtenant the same notice, which is one more reason to run a sublet request as a documented process rather than a text thread.

Section F: the ceiling on a new building's first five years

Section F covers a dwelling in an immovable that was recently built, or recently converted to rental use. There is no 12-month rent history to declare, so you declare something else: the maximum rent you could charge in the five years after the building is ready for its intended use.

That box is what buys you the restriction. Complete it and the rent-fixing route is shut for those five years. Leave it blank and you do not get the restriction, which means the increases you underwrote are open to challenge. You are not required to publish a year-by-year schedule. You are required to state the ceiling, and then live inside it.

This applies to leases entered into on or after February 21, 2024, the day Bill 31 was adopted. Educaloi puts it plainly: in a new building, a lease signed on or after that date must also mention the maximum rent the landlord can charge during the first five years.

Three deadlines, and you pick which one applies

The window a new tenant gets to ask the Tribunal to fix the rent depends on what you did at signing, not on how the tenant feels about the price.

• Ten days from entering into the lease. This is the window you get when the notice was given properly. A tenant paying more than the declared amount can apply, and after ten days that door is shut.
• Two months from the start of the lease. This is what a blank box costs. Skipping the notice does not remove the tenant's right, it lengthens it.
• Two months from the day the tenant learns the notice was false. This one has no fixed end date. The clock starts when the tenant finds out, which might be from a neighbour, eight months in.

Read the three together and the incentive is obvious. A complete and accurate notice is the only version that gives you a short, predictable window.

What a false notice costs since 2024

For leases entered into on or after February 21, 2024, a tenant can also claim punitive damages where the lessor made a false statement about the previous rent or knowingly failed to give the notice. That sits separately from the rent being fixed. The rent gets adjusted either way, and punitive damages land on top, turning on whether you meant it.

So an honest mistake and a convenient one are two different problems. Writing down a number you never verified is the kind of thing that reads as deliberate in hindsight, and the record you kept at signing is what separates the two.

Where section G does not reach

The disclosure does not apply to every unit. Educaloi lists the exceptions: housing co-operatives, low-rental housing, and dwellings in buildings built within the past five years. That last one is the handoff to section F. A new building has no rent history to look back on, so it gets a forward-looking ceiling instead.

Work out which category a unit falls into before you sign, not after. The exemptions attach to the building, not to the deal you negotiated.

What to do at signing

1. Pull the rent history for that specific dwelling covering the 12 months before the lease starts, and take the lowest rent collected.
2. If the Tribunal fixed the rent for that dwelling in the same period, that figure goes in instead.
3. If the unit sat empty and no rent was paid, give the notice of the last rent paid with its date rather than leaving section G blank.
4. If the building was built or converted within the last five years, complete section F with the maximum rent for the five years running from the date the building was ready. Treat that number as a pricing decision, because you are bound by it.
5. Give the tenant a copy of the signed lease within ten days of entering into it, and keep a dated copy yourself. A two-month clock that starts the day a tenant hears something from a neighbour is defended with records, not recollection.

The timing is the part that travels badly

Operators who hold units in more than one province tend to import Ontario habits into Quebec, and the timing is wrong. Ontario does most of its rent control work at renewal, in the notice you serve and the guideline that applies to it. Quebec front-loads the work. Two boxes, completed at the table where the lease gets signed, set what you can defend for the next five years.