A century of Canadian legal precedents dealing with listings describing homes for sale were reversed late last year by an Ontario Court of Appeal decision that is being seen as one of the year’s most significant real estate law rulings.

When the heirs of a GTA deceased homeowner decide it’s time to sell the property, it typically takes the Ontario estates court many months to rubber-stamp probate documents allowing the sale to proceed.

In his first-year law student text book, “Principles of Property Law,” prof. Bruce Ziff begins a chapter on lost objects with this statement: “The law of finding is not an area of pressing practical concern.”

Anyone who has bought or sold a property since the COVID-19 state of emergency was declared in Ontario last March will have experienced a sea change in how these deals are legally closed.

Young ghosts and goblins may be imagining the hauntings that have happened in their homes this Hallowe’en. For home buyers, the possibility of purchasing a residence associated with a haunting — or other dark event — can be a true nightmare.

Keep your neighbour disputes off the Internet.

Should home sellers have to pay commission on a sale if the transaction doesn’t close?

Refusing to close a deal for the unconditional sale of a home in a rising market is never a good idea. It can lead to expensive consequences.

When homeowners agree to sell but neglect to note the property’s heating and cooling system is rented, chances are they will eventually have to buy out the rental contract.

It’s the night before closing, the seller has moved out and the buyer wants to do a last-minute inspection to ensure there’s been no damage since the last visit.

Can a buyer ever back out of a purchase on the basis of registered easements that entitle third parties to particular rights on the land?

Fighting failed real estate deals in court can be futile — and expensive — as shown by the verdicts in two recent Ontario cases.

A buyer of a pre-construction townhouse in Markham found out the hard way what can happen if the property is resold before its closing date and without the builder’s permission.

How should a condominium board act when it receives complaints about a resident smoking in his unit?

Can dead people sign property deeds?

In these times of economic uncertainty, Canadians who own their own homes may be thinking about protecting them from health risks due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

OREA fails its members and the public.

One of Ontario’s most respected real estate lawyers has sounded the alarm against using untested COVID-19 clauses in property transactions.

There is good news and bad news for those of us in the real estate field during the COVID-19 pandemic.

A homeowner who used a “Reader’s Digest” manual to build a house that he later sold was found liable for negligent construction by the Ontario Superior Court earlier this month.

An Ontario court judge has ruled that buyers of a pre-construction condo unit could close their purchase transaction despite the builder terminating the deal.

Ontario’s highest court has levelled an unusually harsh blast at the Tarion Warranty Corporation, saying its compulsory addendum form which must be attached to every builder agreement is complex, difficult to follow and does not protect consumers.

February is RRSP season, and there is no shortage of advice available to Canadians on tax-free investing before the deadline of March 2.

When it comes to real estate, most Canadians speak in terms of Imperial measurement. The majority of home offers I see show frontage and depth measurements in feet, even though we officially switched to the metric system during the time of the first Prime Minister Trudeau.

Since the start of 2020, every new purchase agreement for a pre-construction residential condominium is required to have attached to it an information sheet highlighting important issues that are part of a pre-construction transaction.

One of the questions I’m frequently asked by home sellers is what issues they must disclose during the negotiation of a sale agreement.

How does an interested buyer know if a home’s basement apartment is legal? And what information about basement apartments must real estate agents provide to buyers?

This past year’s GTA real estate market may become known as the year of aborted transactions.

What’s better for Ontario condominiums and their owners: electronic proxies or electronic voting? And what’s the difference?

I am regularly surprised at how frequently a land survey is viewed as
unnecessary when it could be considered the single most important
document in a real estate transaction.

An easy solution to the problem of owner apathy in condominium buildings, and a simple way to encourage interest and participation, is to introduce electronic voting.

If the city of Toronto was serious about tackling the housing
shortage, why would it charge Toronto homeowners $300,000 to
legalize three bachelor apartments in their house?

When homebuyers discover before closing that the sellers are involved in boundary litigation with their neighbours, are they obliged to close the deal?

There’s nothing like having your property burn to the ground to focus your attention on the need for good property insurance.

In today’s real estate market, it’s not unusual for new home buyers to
find themselves in a dilemma.

Property owner stuck with $25,000 in court costs over cottage’s pre-existing issues

“What could be more Canadian than Toronto neighbours arguing about building an addition on a house?” asked Justice Ed Morgan in one of his decisions released earlier this year. “Homeowners arguing about a maple tree, of course,” he continued.

An Ontario Superior Court decision may change the law of joint land ownership and the right of survivorship when one owner dies.

The duty of a condominium corporation to accommodate disabled residents is highlighted by a decision from the Ontario Human Rights Tribunal released earlier this year.

What happens when a real estate transaction closes, the keys and money have been exchanged, and the buyer arrives at his or her new property only to find the seller still there?

Is a homeowner obliged to disclose to a potential purchaser that the house was the site of a gang murder? This was the key issue last month in a decision of the British Columbia Court of Appeal, which reversed a 2018 trial court decision.

Buried in last month’s provincial budget is a measure designed to reduce the cost of obtaining probate — “to provide tax relief for families when they need it most, as the death of a loved one is a difficult time.”

Next month marks the start of cottage season — a good time for a reminder that buying rural property is much different than buying in the city.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has affirmed the obligations of condominium developers to provide buyers with complete and transparent disclosure of a proposed project’s features.

This includes a budget statement which fairly and accurately reveals the costs that purchasers will have to pay in the first year of their ownership.

A court case decided in Bracebridge last month emphasizes the risks of using a Seller Property Information Statement.

It also illuminates the risks of having the same agent act for both the buyer and seller.

With Toronto’s high housing prices, more attention is being focused on the concept of co-housing with buyers sharing occupancy and ownership costs of buying a home.

When Canadians file for bankruptcy, most of their assets — including houses and cottages — become the property of the trustee in bankruptcy and are sold to pay creditors.

One of the few exceptions to this rule occurs when the bankrupt person holds property in trust for a third party.

One way of making better use of the scarce residential land we have in the GTA is to intensify housing.

The City of Toronto’s official policy is pro-intensification. But its planning department seems to be actively opposed to squeezing more housing onto existing land.

Urban planner Sean Galbraith demonstrated — in recent Twitter posts — how Toronto’s own zoning regulations are standing in the way of Mayor John Tory’s goal to create 40,000 affordable housing units.

The Ontario Court of Appeal has reversed a lower court’s decision allowing the seller of a Toronto property to keep the $100,000 deposit of a buyer who refused to close the deal.