You Own the House and the Lot Next Door: Why Selling Just One Can Need Planning Act Consent in Ontario

The buyer’s lawyer will ask about the parcel you are keeping, not just the one you are selling. Here is who checks what at the closing table, and which documents fix the problem.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a real estate broker in Toronto. Picture the week before closing on a cottage lot you have agreed to sell. Your lawyer forwards a requisition letter from the buyer’s lawyer, and one item has nothing to do with the lot you sold. It asks, in effect, whether you own any land that touches it. You do: the cottage itself, on the parcel next door, which you are keeping.

That question is not paperwork for its own sake. Ontario’s Planning Act decides whether the deed you are about to sign conveys anything at all, and the answer turns on the land you keep. This article goes person by person and document by document: what the buyer’s lawyer is checking, what you and your lawyer will sign, what the municipality can issue, what the agreement of purchase and sale should say, and when none of it is needed.

The buyer’s lawyer: what the requisition is really asking

The rule behind the letter is s.50(3)(b). Outside a registered plan of subdivision, no one may convey land if they retain the fee or the equity of redemption in any land abutting the land being conveyed, unless an exception applies or a consent is given (s.50(3)(f)). People call the result a “merger” of the two parcels. The Act does not use that word for it; it talks about retaining abutting land.

The buyer’s lawyer has a specific job here. To give the statement in s.50(22)(c), they must state that they investigated the title to the land and, where relevant, to the abutting land; that the record of title shows no existing contravention that would prevent the conveyance of any interest; that to the best of their knowledge this transfer does not contravene s.50; and that they act independently of your lawyer and are an Ontario solicitor in good standing. Your adjoining cottage parcel is exactly the “abutting land” they have to look at.

There is a limit on how far back they must go. Under s.50(23), a lawyer does not need to search the registered title earlier than the most recent registered deed or transfer of the same land that contains all three statements. Earlier history is, in effect, closed by that transfer.

You and your lawyer: the two statements on your side of the transfer

Your side of the transfer carries two statements. Under s.50(22)(a), you, as the grantor, verify that to the best of your knowledge and belief the transfer does not contravene s.50. Under s.50(22)(b), your lawyer verifies four things: that they explained the effect of s.50 to you, that they asked you questions to determine the transfer does not contravene it, that on the information you supplied it does not to the best of their knowledge, and that they are an Ontario solicitor in good standing.

Read (b)(iii) closely: your lawyer’s statement rests on the information you supply. If you do not mention the cottage parcel next door, or a strip you bought from a neighbour years ago, your lawyer is answering on an incomplete picture.

The consequence for a false statement is set out plainly. Under s.50(25), every person who knowingly makes a false statement under s.50(22) is guilty of an offence and, on conviction, is liable to a fine not exceeding the combined value of the land the statement is about and the relevant abutting land, both valued as of the day the transfer is registered. In a house-and-lot situation, that ceiling is measured by both properties, not just the one being sold.

The municipality: three different documents, three different jobs

The municipality, or the Minister in some areas, is the only party that can give you something the lawyers cannot.

A consent under s.53. This is the forward-looking fix: permission to convey (or mortgage) the land despite s.50(3). When it is granted, the clerk issues a certificate under s.53(42), which the Act calls conclusive evidence that the consent was given. Who grants consent depends on where the land is (s.50(1)), and the power can be delegated (s.50(1.0.1)).

A certificate of validation under s.57. This looks backward. A council authorized to give consents may certify that a past contravention of s.50 does not have, and is deemed never to have had, the effect of preventing the conveyance. Under s.57(6), it may only be issued if the land conforms with the same criteria that apply to granting consents under s.53. It does not affect rights from a court judgment or order made on or before the day it is issued (s.57(2)).

A by-law under s.50(4). This one can work against you. A local council may designate a plan of subdivision, or part of one, that has been registered for eight years or more, so that it is deemed not to be a registered plan for the purposes of s.50(3). If your two lots sit in such a plan, the registered-plan exceptions you might have relied on stop applying. The by-law is not effective until a certified copy is registered in the land registry office (s.50(27), (28)). No notice or hearing is required before it passes, but council must notify the assessed owners within 30 days after passing it, and an owner who asks within 20 days of the mailing must be heard on amending or repealing it (s.50(29), (30)).

A consent certificate versus the three statements in the transfer

The agreement of purchase and sale: the sentence that keeps the deal alive

Section 50(21) is the reason everyone at the table cares. An agreement, conveyance, mortgage or charge made in contravention of s.50 does not create or convey any interest in land. The same subsection carves out one thing: it does not affect an agreement entered into subject to an express condition that the agreement is to be effective only if the provisions of s.50 are complied with.

In practical terms, if there is any chance your sale needs a consent, the agreement should say, in words, that it is conditional on compliance with s.50 of the Planning Act. Ask your lawyer to draft it; the exact wording is theirs to settle.

Build the consent timeline into the agreement too. A consent lapses two years from the date of its s.53(42) certificate if the transaction is not carried out in that time, and the council may set an earlier date (s.53(43)). A closing date that slides past the lapse puts you back where you started.

One workaround the Act anticipates: selling the two parcels at the same moment to two different buyers. Under s.50(15), simultaneous conveyances of abutting lands are deemed to involve retaining the abutting land, unless the same parties are acting in the same capacities on both.

When nobody needs a consent at all

Section 50(3)(b) lists three kinds of retained abutting land that do not trigger the rule:

• (i) land that is the whole of one or more lots or blocks within one or more registered plans of subdivision;
• (ii) land within a registered condominium description under the Condominium Act, 1998;
• (iii) the identical parcel that was previously conveyed, mortgaged or charged with a s.53 consent given on or after March 31, 1979, where that consent did not stipulate that s.50(3) or (5) applies to later dealings.

Separately, s.50(3)(a) exempts land described in accordance with and within a registered plan of subdivision, subject to any s.50(4) by-law above. Selling only part of a lot in a registered plan is a different rule, part-lot control under s.50(5), which has its own parallel exceptions.

Since 2021, s.50(3)(a.1) also covers a specific family situation: land that is the whole of a parcel previously owned by joint tenants, or that abutted land previously owned by joint tenants, where ownership would otherwise have merged in the survivor as a result of one joint tenant’s death. This is the one place in s.50(3) where the Act uses the word “merged”.

Whether any of these fits your two parcels is a title question, which brings us back to the person who reads the parcel registers: a lawyer.

Who does what before the deed is signed

Grouped by the person responsible, because each item belongs to someone different at the table.