The terms, plainly.

What Norlease is

Norlease is a rental listing platform, starting in North Bay, Ontario and expanding across Northern Ontario, connecting renters and landlords. Norlease is free to use, for everyone, indefinitely. There is no fee to browse listings, create an account, message someone, or post a listing as a landlord. Norlease is not a party to any lease, tenancy agreement, or rental transaction between a renter and a landlord, is not a real estate brokerage, and does not act as anyone's agent.

Accounts

You need an account to post a listing, save a search, save a listing, or message another user. Browsing and searching listings never requires an account, and neither does reporting a listing. Accounts are handled by Clerk, our authentication provider. You can sign up with an email address and password, or with a Google or Microsoft account. You're responsible for keeping your account secure and for anything that happens through it. One account is for one real person.

What verification means, and doesn't mean

Landlords. A landlord must verify a real phone number, by entering a one-time code we text them, before a listing can go live. That is the required check. A landlord can also choose to complete an identity check, a government-issued photo ID plus a selfie, reviewed by a real person on our team, which adds a verified badge to their listings. That second step is currently optional and is not required to publish. We may make it required again as the platform grows, and this page will say so when that happens.

Renters. A renter must verify a real phone number the same way, and fill in a short profile, before sending a first message to a landlord. A renter can also choose to complete the same optional photo ID and selfie check, which upgrades their badge. It is never required, and phone verification alone unlocks messaging in full.

What none of this proves. Verification confirms that an account belongs to a reachable, and in some cases identified, real person. It does not verify that a landlord owns or has the legal right to rent out the specific property listed. Norlease does not require or check proof of property ownership. A verification badge is not a guarantee, warranty, or endorsement of any listing or any person, and you should still use your own judgment, including seeing a property in person before agreeing to anything or sending any money.

How a listing gets published

When a landlord submits a listing that meets the requirements, at least one photo, the basic details filled in, an address we could place on the map, and a verified phone number, it publishes automatically rather than waiting in a queue. Every listing that publishes this way then goes into a review list that a real person on our team looks through afterward. If something is wrong with a listing, we can unpublish or delete it after the fact, and the landlord is told why. We also check every uploaded listing photo against photos already on the platform, to catch the same images being reused across different listings.

Listing addresses are approximate, on purpose

Norlease deliberately does not collect or publish an exact civic address. A listing records a street name only, and the map shows a translucent circle covering roughly a 200 metre area rather than a precise pin. This is a privacy protection for the people living there, not an accuracy problem, and landlords shouldn't work around it by putting a full street address or unit number into a listing title, description, or photo.

Landlord responsibilities

If you post a listing, it must be accurate, for a real property you have the right to rent out, and genuinely available. You may not post a listing for a property that doesn't exist, that you don't control, or that's no longer available.

Norlease does not permit collecting or requesting income information, credit scores, or setting a minimum-income requirement from a prospective renter through this platform. There is no field, no filter, and no feature for any of it, deliberately. Ontario's Human Rights Code and O. Reg. 290/98 also apply to you directly when you select a tenant, whether or not Norlease is involved, and a lack of credit history cannot be treated as a negative. You are responsible for your own compliance with the Residential Tenancies Act, the Human Rights Code, and every other law that applies to renting out a property in Ontario.

What a landlord sees about a renter

When a renter messages you about a listing, you're shown the short profile they filled in once: their real name, an optional photo, what they do, who's moving in, and their living situation and rough timeline. That information is there to help you decide whether to reply, and it is only visible inside a conversation that renter chose to start with you.

Norlease does not provide, and will not build, any way for a landlord to search, browse, filter, sort, shortlist, or rank renters using that information. It is a per-conversation display and nothing else. Using what you learn there to discriminate against a renter on a ground protected by Ontario's Human Rights Code, including receipt of public assistance, is both against these terms and against the law. Copying, exporting, or reusing renter profile information outside the conversation it appeared in is not permitted.

Renter conduct

The name and details in your renter profile should be genuinely yours and genuinely accurate, since a landlord relies on them when they decide whether to reply. Use the messaging feature and the report-a-listing feature honestly. Don't use Norlease to harass another user, submit false reports, or attempt to circumvent phone or identity verification.

Messaging

Messages, including any photos you send in a conversation, are delivered in real time and stored on Norlease's own servers so that both people keep the conversation history. The first message in a new conversation has phone numbers and email addresses automatically removed before it's stored and delivered, as a light anti-fraud measure, so an early conversation stays on the platform where a report can still be investigated. Later messages are not filtered.

We don't read conversations routinely, and there is nothing automated reading them for advertising or profiling. We may look at a specific conversation when we're investigating a report, a safety concern, or a legal obligation. Don't send anything through messaging that you wouldn't want a real person at Norlease to see in that situation.

Saved listings and saved searches

You can save a listing or save a search, and come back to either from your account. Saved searches do not currently send email alerts, and Norlease does not send marketing or promotional email of any kind today. If that changes, it will be something you opt into, with a clear way to unsubscribe, and this page and the Privacy Policy will be updated first.

Reporting and removal

Anyone, signed in or not, can report a listing that appears fraudulent, inaccurate, already rented, or otherwise inappropriate, using the report option on the listing's own page. A real person reviews every report and either dismisses it or acts on it. Norlease may remove a listing, with the landlord notified of the removal and the reason given, and may remove a listing, revoke a verification badge, or suspend an account at its own discretion if these terms are broken.

No liability for listings or transactions

Norlease provides the platform, not the rental transaction itself. Any lease, deposit, payment, or agreement between a renter and a landlord is between those two parties. Norlease is not responsible for the condition of a property, the accuracy of a listing beyond the verification and review steps described above, the conduct of any user, or the outcome of any rental agreement. Norlease is provided as it is, free of charge, and we don't promise it will always be available or error-free.

Your content

You keep ownership of the listing text and photos you upload. By posting them, you give Norlease permission to store, resize, and display them on the platform for as long as your listing is up, and you confirm you have the right to use the photos you upload. Photos copied from another listing or another site are not permitted, and our photo-reuse check exists specifically to catch them.

Governing law

Norlease is operated from Ontario, Canada. These terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. Nothing here takes away a right you have under Ontario consumer protection law or the Residential Tenancies Act.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as Norlease changes. Meaningful changes will be reflected here with an updated date. Continuing to use Norlease after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Contact

Questions about these terms can be sent to [email protected].