Buyer's Guide

Walking Away: Seven Red Flags You Can Verify on Paper

By Georges Matar · July 24, 2026 · 7 min read

A real red flag is not a feeling, it is something you verify. And it is almost never in the kitchen: it lives in a form, a surveyor’s plan, a set of meeting minutes or a government map. For the building itself, see what gets checked, item by item. What follows is seven red flags, each resting on a written rule, and where you check each one.

1. A Seller’s Declaration that is empty, or missing

The Declarations by the seller of the immovable form, the DS, and its DSD version for divided co-ownership, is mandatory whenever a broker takes part in the sale of a chiefly residential immovable of fewer than five dwellings owned by a natural person. It is attached to the promise to purchase and handed to the inspector.

The underlying rule fits in one line: the seller declares what he knows, he does not warrant what he does not know. The OACIQ adds that he must disclose factors brought to his attention by previous owners, not only what he observed himself. An estate fills the form to the best of its knowledge and explains at clause D15 why it cannot answer.

Two situations change everything. If the seller refuses to complete and sign the DS, the broker simply cannot enter into a brokerage contract with him. And if the seller is a legal person, a bank repossessing a property or a developer, the DS is not mandatory: its absence is itself a piece of information. Ask as well whether an Amendments form has modified it, since the broker must update the DS once an inspection reveals an adverse factor.

2. Sale without legal warranty, at the buyer’s own risk

Article 1726 of the Civil Code requires the seller to warrant that the property is free of latent defects. He does not warrant a defect the buyer knows about, nor an apparent one, which the text defines: a defect a prudent and diligent buyer can detect without resorting to an expert.

The parties may reduce this warranty or exclude it entirely, in the standard wording: without any legal warranty, at the buyer’s own risk. The OACIQ issued a warning after the Court of Appeal ruling in Tremblay v. Immeubles Perron ltee, which confirms Blais v. Laforce, 2022 QCCA 858. A seller’s silence about a defect he knows of no longer amounts to fraud in an at your own risk sale: the buyer must now prove a lie, a half truth or a manoeuvre meant to deceive him. That is no licence to lie: the seller must answer the Seller’s Declarations accurately, and a false answer is a lie, not silence. The listing broker, for his part, must still inform the parties of every adverse factor he knows of. The clause also imputes presumed knowledge of defects to you and closes off any recourse against previous owners.

The OACIQ reserves total exclusion for exceptional cases: a succession, a repossession, a building to be demolished, a change of use. On an ordinary house sold by the person living in it, ask for the explanation.

3. A certificate of location that no longer matches the ground

The seller must hand over the certificate of location he holds, and it still has to be worth something. Educaloi sets the rule: it stops being current at the first of two events, a change to the property, to municipal by-laws or to the lot number in the Cadastre du Quebec, or ten years of age.

It answers questions no visit settles: does the property comply with municipal by-laws, where does the lot line actually run, who holds a right of way, is the land in a flood zone or a landslide zone. The Civil Code adds that the seller warrants against any encroachment he committed himself, and any a third party had, to his knowledge, begun before the sale.

Title insurance is not a substitute: Educaloi notes that problems with fences, retaining walls and hedges, like breaches of environmental regulations, are excluded.

4. Refusing the inspection, and what is allowed

Nobody can force a seller to open his door to an inspector. A Superior Court judgment of December 18, 2025, commented on by the OACIQ on February 25, 2026, goes further: a seller may propose, in a counter-proposal, a clause letting him refuse the inspector the buyer chose. The court sees contractual freedom in it.

The limit is sharp. Such a clause must provide that the inspection period starts running again after a refusal, failing which it puts the buyer in a precarious position and offends the duty of good faith. A seller who refuses every inspection and every extra day is not asking for a compromise: he is asking you to buy blind.

5. In a condo, the paperwork comes before the walls

The seller of a fraction must hand over, in good time, an attestation from the syndicate on the state of the co-ownership, which the syndicate provides within 15 days of the request. The regulation setting its form and content has been in force since August 14, 2025.

Then check three things in the co-ownership register, which holds the minutes, the financial statements, the maintenance logbook and the contingency fund study. Special assessments first: the board must consult the general meeting before deciding one, so the assessment in preparation shows up in minutes before it shows up on your bill. The gap next between what the study recommends paying in and what the co-ownership actually pays, since the law requires the amounts to be set on those recommendations. Unpaid charges last: the buyer of a fraction owes every common expense due at the time of acquisition, with interest, unless he requested the statement of charges and received it within 15 days.

The logbook and the study are mandatory, with compliance required three years and one day after August 14, 2025. A co-ownership that has started nothing has told you something.

6. A dwelling that does not comply with zoning

The seller warrants the buyer against any violation of public law limitations, unless he disclosed them, unless a prudent and diligent buyer could have discovered them from the nature, situation and use of the premises, or unless they were registered at the Bureau de la publicite fonciere. The warranty falls away quickly.

The Quebec government’s urban planning decision guide is blunt: a permit granted illegally creates no acquired right, and even where municipal authorities tolerated the situation, no acquired right flows from construction or land use carried out illegally. An acquired right, where it exists, is limited to the area actually used, and a municipality may require a derogatory use to cease once it has been interrupted for a period it defines, never less than six months.

A basement rented without a permit is not income, it is a contingent debt. A zoning certificate and the permit history settle it.

7. The environmental signals, and where each is checked

Pyrite and pyrrhotite. The OACIQ lists 91 Greater Montreal cities affected and requires the broker to inform the buyer even when the property looks untouched. Only an expert assessment settles it, and the buyer cannot order one without the owner’s authorization. The OACIQ forbids any clause setting a percentage threshold for withdrawal: the condition goes through the Annex Expert report form.

Iron ochre. No registry flags it. You look for it in the DS, in drain maintenance invoices and in a camera inspection.

A buried oil tank. The Environment Ministry’s contaminated sites registry and its mapping tool, Repere GTC, are free.

Flood zone. The interactive map of flood zones and watercourse mobility zones is published at zonesinondables.mrnf.gouv.qc.ca. The modernized regulatory framework replaced the transitional regime on March 1, 2026, and what you may rebuild after damage depends on the intensity class of the land.

What these seven have in common

None of them asks for intuition. Each is settled by a document you obtain, a question you put in writing, or a box you tick in a promise to purchase. When the seller refuses all three, the file has answered. And if a stubborn myth is pushing you to sign fast, reread the ones that cost the most.

Unsure about one specific property, or stuck on a document you cannot get? Send me the file and I will tell you plainly what is negotiable.