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Record documentation is every broker’s business

Providing the documents needed to maintain records and registers is an integral part of the requirements to practice the profession. To help you meet these requirements, here’s a reminder of steps you must take, followed by useful information sources:

  • Verify the information provided to the public or to other licence holders;
  • Complete a detailed description sheet (whether or not the property is listed on an information listing service) including the declarations by the seller, all the information pertaining to the description of the immovable and the drafting of a transaction proposal, and any other element required by regulation.
  • Complete with the seller the Declarations by the seller of the immovable form (or Declarations by the seller of the immovable – Divided co-ownership) in all the cases where it is mandatory, and strongly recommend that this form be completed in other cases;
  • Provide buyers' brokers with all the information required to bring the transaction to fruition.
  • Verify the identity and legal capacity of the party you represent, and of the other party if the latter is not represented.
  • Provide without delay to the agency all the information required for the keeping and maintaining of its registers, including any brokerage contract, any document used in the performance of the contract, and any transaction promise and related document.

You should also be able to demonstrate the accuracy of information you provide. Adopting these practices will help ensure the quality of your activities with your peers and clients, and will reduce the risk of being subject to a complaint. Each year the OACIQ Discipline Committee renders many guilty verdicts in complaints filed against brokers who fail in their duty to verify, inform and advise.

A few must-read resources

The Inspection Department has produced a number of Quick Reference Guides for brokers and agencies that specifically outline what must be included in brokerage contract records and transaction records for residential and commercial brokerage transactions. These Quick Reference Guides are available on synbad.com.

Record documentation remains one of the main tools used to establish a broker’s competency. In this regard read the following article: Competency verification: a new tool to improve our profession’s image.

The OACIQ website also offers many articles on the various aspects relating to the need to verify the information provided to the public. A search by key word (verification, documentation, right of ownership restriction, co-ownership, hypothec, servitude, etc.) is quick, easy, effective, and accessible to all.

How should you document your records? Where can you verify this information?

With the new tools available to today’s brokers, there is no longer any reason not to have a file properly documented. That’s why the Inspection Department will continue to emphasize the need for licence holders to demonstrate that they have verified the information they provide to the public and to other licence holders.

To help you, the list of the following websites is provided as a starting point. From these links you can get information pertaining, for example, to: owner names, copies of ownership titles, declarations of co-ownership, indivision agreements, servitudes, hypothecs or liens, other restrictions of private law, renovated cadastre plan, published leases, etc.

Reference number
119068
Last update
November 2, 2022