Most tenants don’t know that the landlord is responsible for mowing the lawn & shoveling the snow.
The landlords sneak it into the lease saying you have to do it, hoping the tenants don’t know any better & guess what, they don’t.
I personally couldn’t get out of my car half the time, & neither could my son because the landlord NEVER shoveled the snow & he lied about widening the driveway to accommodate the tenant in the basement. All he did was split the driveway in half so now I didn’t even have what I consider to be a proper driveway.
It was a very tight squeeze when there was no snow, the minute it started to snow, there were problems. I was in a terrible mood every time I went to leave my driveway & go back in.
My son was forced to shovel the driveway while the tenant in the basement didn’t do a thing. He’s shoveled maybe 4 times the entire winter.
About 2-3 weeks ago I was shocked to learn via duty counsel that the landlord is actually responsibile for all of this work, & I’m sure you are happy to hear that too considering all the snow we’ve had this winter.
I double checked with the board & they told me to call my Regional Counselor which I did. She then checked the site’s snow removal area which stated that either the owner or the occupant had to maintain the snow, but she was sure it previously said just the owner had to. Then she went to the by-law department’s website & it said the same thing.
She told me who to e-mail & I did, & sure enough he confirmed that if the snow is NOT maintained, the owner is the one who is ultimately responsible, NOT the tenant, so do yourself a favour, check into this.
Don’t let the landlord get away with murder by making you be their snow plow guy. If you want to make an arrangement to shovel & salt all the snow for a reduction in rent, by all means go for it, just check out how much snow plowing companies cost & go from there.
If you want to be nice & shovel, then once again this is your choice, but if you feel this should be done by your landlord, understand this is your right & the landlord is denying you your rights if they don’t maintain the house you are renting.
If there are 2 of you in the house, this makes it more difficult to maintain because arrangements have to be made & both tenants may not be there each time, or one may do more than the other, so this makes much more sense that the landlord be responsible for the entire shoveling & salting anyway.
so in london ontario it is my landlords job to remove the snow from my driveway? all my landlord has done is shovel a path from each door, i am supposed to be moving and the pathis so small i can’t even fit my stroller down it