Seller's Guide
Selling Before Buying in Quebec: The Clauses That Decide
You own your home and you want to move. The real question is not whether you will sell and buy, but in which order. …
Between the first meeting with a broker and the signing at the notaire, a residential sale goes through about ten steps. Each one is attached to a specific document, and it is that document, not the habits of the parties, that decides what you have to do and within what deadline. Here is the real sequence, form by form.
The process of selling a house in Quebec starts with two forms
The first meeting commits you to nothing. The day you sign, you fill out two documents.
The first is the contrat de courtage vente (the listing brokerage contract), a mandatory OACIQ form. Its term is not imposed on you: you are the one who writes in the end date, and if that box is left blank, the contract ends 30 days after it is entered into. Read the listing brokerage contract clause by clause before you sign.
The second is the Déclarations du vendeur sur l’immeuble form, the DV. The OACIQ guideline is explicit: the broker fills it out with you when the contrat de courtage is taken, then annexes it to the fiche descriptive (the listing sheet) and to any promesse d’achat (promise to purchase) received. He has to question you whenever an answer is vague, obtain the invoices and permits that support your declarations, and update it as soon as something new comes up. What you write there follows the file all the way to the notaire: the DV form in detail.
The certificat de localisation, the item that delays the most files
As soon as the contrat de courtage is signed, the broker has to verify whether you hold a certificat de localisation (a land surveyor’s certificate of location), how old it is, what has been added since it was issued, and examine its content. If there is none, if it is no longer valid, or if it does not reflect the current state of the premises, he has to recommend that you have a new one produced.
Why so early. Because clause 10.3 of the Promesse d’achat form requires you to give the buyer an authentic copy of your deed of acquisition and of your certificat de localisation, and that certificate must reflect any cadastral operation or renovation, the current physical state of the premises, private law limitations such as a servitude, and public law ones. The form gives the examples: heat pump, deck, fence, shed, pool. A buyer who wants a different certificate pays for it.
A certificate more than ten years old raises a separate problem: the acquisitive prescription period under article 2917 of the Code civil is 10 years, and the OACIQ ranks a stale certificate among the situations to raise as soon as the contract is taken. Having a new certificate produced by an arpenteur-géomètre (land surveyor) takes time, and that time varies. That is why it is settled when the contrat de courtage is signed, not the day a promesse d’achat arrives.
Fiche descriptive, exposure and showings: the actual listing
The fiche descriptive is the first source of information the public consults. The OACIQ is clear: the information published must be accurate, verified and up to date, and the broker has to be able to demonstrate that it is accurate. He verifies it before publication, not after.
The listing sheet is not frozen. As soon as a relevant fact is brought to the broker’s attention, an inspection report, an expert opinion, a special assessment, he has to correct the fiche and the Déclarations du vendeur using a Modifications form.
Then come the distribution to the inter-agency services, the showings and the feedback. The number of showings and the time before a first promesse d’achat vary from one area to the next and from one month to the next; no average applies to your property. Before you set the asking price, situate your starting point with a home value estimate. On timing, read what makes selling time vary.
The promesse d’achat: accept, refuse, or counter
The buyer binds himself irrevocably until an hour and a date he writes in himself at clause 14.1. If you do not accept within that window, the promise becomes null. The form adds two sentences many sellers discover too late: any refusal on your part renders the promise null and void, and any counter-proposal has the same effect as a refusal.
In practice, you cannot counter and then go back to the initial offer. Each counter-proposal cancels the previous ones, and the last one has to list every item included and excluded that was absent from the initial promise. The agreement that binds you will be the promise as modified by that last counter-proposal.
The OACIQ recommends responding to every promise received, even to refuse it. The broker, for his part, has to present all of them to you.
The buyer’s conditions, and the written deadline behind each one
An accepted promise is not a sale. It opens a period during which the buyer carries out his conditions, each with its own clock. Deadlines left blank are negotiated and vary from one transaction to the next; those printed on the form are not negotiable.
| Step | Document | What sets the deadline |
|---|---|---|
| End of the contrat de courtage | Contrat de courtage, clause 2.1 | The date you write in, 30 days if the box is blank |
| Certificat de localisation | Norme de pratique, article 2 | Verified as soon as the contract is signed; production time varies |
| Response to the promise | Promesse d’achat, clause 14.1 | The hour and the date written by the buyer |
| Inspection | Promesse d’achat, clause 8.1 | Negotiated deadline, then 4 days for the notice and the report, before 8 p.m. |
| Financing | Promesse d’achat, clauses 6.2 and 6.3 | Negotiated deadline, then 5 days for the seller to react |
| Review of documents | Promesse d’achat, clause 9.1 | Negotiated deadline, then 7 days for the buyer’s notice |
| Defect disclosed before the deed | Promesse d’achat, clause 10.5 | 21 days to remedy, then 5 days for the buyer |
| Deed of sale | Promesse d’achat, clause 11.1 | The date written into the promise |
The inspection. Clause 8.1 makes the promise conditional on the buyer having the property inspected within an agreed number of days. If the inspection reveals a factor likely to significantly reduce the value or the income of the property, or to increase its expenses, the buyer has to notify you in writing and give you a copy of the report no later than the fourth day following the expiry of that period, before 8 p.m. The promise then becomes null as soon as you receive that notice together with the report. If he does not give notice within the period provided, he is deemed to have waived the condition. A negative report therefore opens a way out, not an automatic price reduction: an adjustment goes through a new signed document.
The financing. The buyer undertakes to make good faith efforts to obtain his loan, and has to provide you within the agreed period with a copy of a lender’s commitment. That commitment often depends on the appraisal the lender has done on the property, which is the lender’s own and not the market’s. If there is no commitment, you have five days after the expiry of the period to react in writing: either require a new application to a lender you designate, or render the promise null. If you do nothing within those five days, it becomes null anyway.
The documents. At clause 9.1, you deliver the listed documents within the agreed period. A buyer who is not satisfied, or who has not received them, has to notify you in writing within seven days following the expiry of that period. These notices are recorded on the Avis et suivi de réalisation de conditions form (notice and follow-up on the fulfilment of conditions), so that neither party can claim later to have received nothing.
The last step of the selling process: at the notaire
Once the conditions are fulfilled, the deed of sale is signed before the notaire identified at clause 11.1, on or before the date written in. The notaire first examines the titles. He verifies that the title is unassailable, that you are the true owner, that you have the right and the capacity to sell, whether your spouse has to consent, and what mortgage charges encumber the property. With the certificat de localisation, he verifies the dimensions of the land, that the building is indeed erected on the lot being sold, compliance with zoning, encroachments and rights of way.
Two articles of the Code civil govern this step. Article 1719 requires you to hand over the titles you hold, a copy of your deed of acquisition, of the previous titles and of the certificat de localisation. Article 1723 requires you to warrant that the property is free of all rights except those you have declared, and to discharge it of the hypothecs that encumber it. That is where the release comes from: your lender has to consent to the cancellation of its hypothec.
He then calculates the adjustments provided at clause 11.3: general and special property taxes, fuel reserves, income and expenses, as of the date of signing or of occupancy. Clause 11.4 gives him the irrevocable instruction to pay the broker’s remuneration out of the sums coming to you, after the prior and hypothecary claims. And he holds the funds until the deed is registered at the Bureau de la publicité des droits (the land registry office).
What the seller brings. Identification, deed of acquisition, certificat de localisation, the latest municipal and school tax bills, the mortgage balance statement, rental contracts taken over by the buyer under clause 11.7, invoices for the inclusions, banking information, and the spouse’s consent if the property is the family residence. Until occupancy, you remain responsible for keeping the premises in the state they were in at the time of the showings: how the signing at the notaire unfolds.
Frequently asked questions
Can I refuse a promesse d’achat with no consequences? A refusal renders the promise null and void, and you do not have to give a reason. But if it complied with the conditions written into your contrat de courtage, the refusal makes the broker’s remuneration payable. Have the compliance verified before you answer.
The inspection turned up a problem. Can the buyer demand a price reduction? No, not on the basis of clause 8.1, which only allows him to render the promise null by notifying you in writing with a copy of the report within the period provided. A price adjustment is a separate agreement, and you are free to refuse it.
Does a defect discovered after the conditions are lifted cancel the sale? Not automatically. Clause 10.5 gives you 21 days from the written notice to remedy the defect at your expense or to advise that you will not remedy it. The buyer then has five days to buy anyway, with the declarations reduced accordingly, or to render the promise null. Have a notaire read the notice before you answer.
To go further, read how to prepare your home for sale and the listing brokerage contract clause by clause.
Unsure about the order of the steps, or about a deadline that is already running? Write to me. I will tell you where you stand in the sequence, even if your property is listed with another broker.
Georges Matar
Residential Real Estate Broker · RE/MAX DU CARTIER INC.
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