Buying a house in Ontario involves signing a small stack of documents, and they do very different things. Two of them are informational. One of them is the most binding contract most people ever sign.
The documents
RIG: the Information Guide for Buyers and Sellers
Required since the Trust in Real Estate Services Act changes took effect in December 2023. Your agent must present it before providing services beyond basic information. It explains, in the province's own words, the difference between being a client and a customer. Signing acknowledges you received it. It is not a contract.
BDRA: the Buyer Designated Representation Agreement
The contract between you and the brokerage. Two clauses matter most:
- The term. How long you're committed for. Shorter is normal at the start of a relationship.
- The holdover period. If you buy a property you were shown during the term, within a set window after it ends, commission may still be owed. This is the clause that surprises people.
Agreement of Purchase and Sale (OREA Form 100)
The offer. Once accepted by both sides and any conditions are waived or fulfilled, you are buying the house. Its critical fields are the price, the deposit, the closing date, the irrevocable date (how long the seller has to respond), the conditions, and everything in the attached schedules.
FINTRAC identification
Not a contract, and not optional either. Federal anti-money-laundering law makes every brokerage in Canada a reporting entity, so before or around the time your first offer goes in I have to verify your identity and complete a short record. A driver's licence or passport, and about four minutes.
Two things worth knowing now rather than on the evening of an offer. Every person going on title has to be verified, so bring both pieces of identification if you are buying jointly. And if a corporation or a trust is buying, the individuals who ultimately own it have to be identified too, which takes rather longer than four minutes and is worth starting early.
Full detail, including what happens to the information and why an ordinary purchase never generates a report, is in FINTRAC: The Identity Check Behind Every Purchase.
Ontario has no cooling-off period for resale residential purchases. Once your offer is accepted and your conditions are satisfied, you are committed. Backing out means losing your deposit and potentially being sued for the seller's losses.
New-build homes and condominiums bought from a builder are different. The Condominium Act provides a 10-day cooling-off period for new condos purchased from a developer. Resale is the one with no escape hatch.
Instruct a real estate lawyer before you write your first offer, not after one gets accepted. A five-minute call while an offer is still a draft is worth more than a careful review of a contract you can no longer change.
This is how these documents work in practice, not legal advice. Anything unusual belongs with a real estate lawyer before you sign it.