At some point close to writing your first offer, I will ask to see a piece of government photo identification and fill in a short form with you. Clients occasionally find this surprising, and a few find it intrusive, so it is worth explaining properly rather than waving a clipboard.
The short version: it is federal law, it applies to every brokerage in Canada equally, and for an ordinary buyer it takes about four minutes.
What FINTRAC is
The Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada. It is Canada's financial intelligence unit, and it exists to make money laundering and terrorist financing harder to do through Canadian institutions.
Under the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act, real estate brokerages are reporting entities, alongside banks, credit unions, casinos and accountants. That means a set of obligations sits on me and on Chestnut Park, not on you. What you experience is the small visible edge of it.
Property is the classic destination for laundered money. It absorbs very large sums in a single transaction, it holds value, and until relatively recently it could be bought through structures that made the actual owner difficult to identify. The rules exist because the problem was real, and they have tightened steadily.
When it applies, and when it does not
Purchases and sales
Identity has to be verified. This covers houses, condominiums, pre-construction assignments and land. It applies whether you are buying or selling, and whether you are paying cash or financing.
Residential leases
Not covered by these particular requirements. Renting a home does not trigger the FINTRAC identity process, though a landlord will of course still want your own application package for entirely separate reasons.
Since 1 October 2025 the requirement also reaches unrepresented parties, meaning a buyer or seller acting without their own agent. That closed a long-standing gap where one side of a deal went unverified.
When it happens
Around the time you become a client, and in any event before or at the point an agreement of purchase and sale is signed. I would rather do it early, over a coffee, than on a Tuesday evening with an offer waiting.
Once, for the relationship, not once per showing. If you look for eight months, we do this at the start.
Again if something material changes: a different buyer is added, the purchase moves into a corporation, or the funds arrive from a source we had not discussed.
The three ways identity gets verified
You only need one of these, and almost everybody uses the first.
Government photo identification. A driver's licence or passport that is authentic, valid and current. I look at it, record the document type, number and expiry, and that is the end of it. Where it is done remotely there are rules about verifying an electronic copy properly, which is my problem rather than yours.
The credit file method. A Canadian credit file at least three years old, drawing on more than one source, matching your name, address and date of birth.
The dual-process method. Two pieces of information from two independent, reliable sources: for instance a bank statement confirming an account, plus a government document confirming an address. This is the route for someone newly arrived in Canada without a credit file yet.
Tell me early and it is a non-event. Without a Canadian credit file the first method usually works on a passport alone, and the dual-process route exists precisely for this. It is not an obstacle to buying and it does not affect what you can offer.
The other pieces of paper
A receipt of funds record where the brokerage receives your deposit: where the money came from, which account, and who sent it. One more reason the deposit should come from an account in your own name. See How Deposits Work.
A politically exposed person determination. A standard question about whether you, or a close family member, hold or have held senior public office. Answering yes is not a problem and not an accusation; it simply adds a step.
Beneficial ownership, if you buy through a corporation or a trust. We need to identify the individuals who ultimately own or control it, typically anyone holding twenty-five per cent or more, plus the directors. Have the corporate documents ready; this is the part that actually takes time.
A large cash transaction record if $10,000 or more comes in as physical cash within twenty-four hours. In practice this almost never arises, because deposits are paid by bank draft or wire.
What happens to your information
It is kept, securely, for five years, and the brokerage must be able to produce it to FINTRAC within thirty days of a request.
Ordinary records are not sent anywhere. Verifying your identity does not file a report about you. Nothing routine goes to FINTRAC, to the CRA, or to anybody else.
Reports are the exception. A brokerage must report suspicious transactions and certain other specified transactions. That is a threshold most transactions never come close to.
Where a suspicious transaction report is made, the law prohibits telling the person it concerns. That sounds ominous and it is really a design feature: it prevents somebody being tipped off, and it means an agent is never in the position of having to justify a judgement call to the subject of it.
I mention it only because you should hear it from me rather than read it somewhere and wonder. For an ordinary purchase it will never arise.
How to make it take four minutes
- Bring a valid driver's licence or passport to our first proper meeting. Check the expiry date; an expired licence is the single most common hold-up.
- Every person who will be on title needs to be verified, so bring both pieces of identification if you are buying jointly.
- If a corporation or trust is buying, tell me at the start and bring the articles, the register of directors and the ownership details.
- Fund your deposit from an account in your own name. A deposit arriving from a third party is not fatal, it simply needs explaining and documenting.
- If part of your down payment is a gift, say so early. Gifts are entirely normal and only become awkward when they are a surprise.
This is paperwork, and I will not pretend it is interesting. It is also four minutes and a photocopy for the overwhelming majority of buyers, it applies identically to every brokerage in the country, and it is one of the reasons a Canadian real estate transaction is a reasonably safe thing to take part in. If any of it worries you, ask me and I will show you the form before you sign it.