Notice – Agency or status change

Over the course of your career, you could very well choose one day to act on your own account, to leave one agency for another, or to cease your brokerage activities.

In these cases, the rules set out in the Regulation respecting brokerage requirements, professional conduct of brokers and advertising concerning notices of agency change apply (articles 24 to 28). Here is a summary of these rules.

In residential brokerage:

When a broker changes agencies or leaves his agency to act on his own account, the client must be notified in writing that he may:

continue to deal with the broker at his new place of business;
continue to deal with the agency, or;
terminate the brokerage contract.

The client must make his choice on the day of the agency change at the latest; otherwise the contract will be automatically terminated pursuant to the clauses contained in the mandatory brokerage contract forms (section 10 of brokerage contract – sale and section 9 of the brokerage contract – purchase).

If the client chooses to follow the broker:

the client will be bound to the agency for which the broker is now acting, or to the broker himself if he or she has chosen to work for his or her own account, under the same terms as provided in the initial brokerage contract, without the need for a new brokerage contract to be signed;
the file will have to be recreated by the new agency or the broker acting for his or her own account. Upon request by the client, the agency to which the client was initially bound must give the client a complete copy of his or her file.

When a broker retires or passes away, suspends or revokes his residential real estate broker licence, the client must be notified in writing that he may:

continue doing business with the agency; or
terminate the brokerage contract.

Failure to receive a response from the client will not result in an automatic termination of the brokerage contract in this case, regardless of the form used. In addition, unless there is a termination notice from the client, the contract will continue with the agency. The latter should then provide the client with the name of the replacing broker.

In commercial brokerage:

When a broker changes agencies or leaves his agency to act on his own account, the client must be notified in writing that he may:

continue to deal with the broker at his new place of business;
continue to deal with the agency, or;
terminate the brokerage contract.

The client must make his choice on the day of the agency change at the latest. If he doesn’t do so, the consequences will depend on the terms of the brokerage contract (e.g. automatic termination or change of broker representing the agency). For more information, see Commercial real estate brokerage: when a broker leaves an agency.

When a broker retires or passes away, suspends or revokes his commercial real estate broker licence, the client must be notified in writing that he may:

continue doing business with the agency; or
terminate the brokerage contract.

Failure to receive a response from the client will not result in an automatic termination of the brokerage contract in this case, regardless of the form used. In addition, unless there is a termination notice from the client, the contract will continue with the agency. The latter should then provide the client with the name of the replacing broker.

Examples of standard notices

To help you announce this type of change, we have prepared several standard notices that contained the elements required under the regulations. They are grouped by category for ease of consultation.

Note however that you may need to adapt these notices based on your agency’s needs (for example, although the contract is automatically terminated due to non-compliance with the time periods, the agency may want to propose its services to the client anew).

IMPORTANT: These standard notices have been designed according to what is provided in the clauses of the OACIQ forms. They can be used only with the forms of the Organization. In the event the OACIQ forms are not used, the consequences can be different. In addition, it is first the agency that must give notice to the client. The broker could give it, but this should not be done without the knowledge of the agency.