Selling While a Minor Variance Is Pending or Freshly Approved: Does the Committee of Adjustment Decision Go With the House?

A filed application and an issued decision are two different things to sell with. Here is what the Planning Act ties to the property, what the decision document itself controls, and how the appeal clock and the OREA ZONING-1 clause fit around a sale.

I’m Arthur Zhao, a real estate broker in Toronto. Picture two sellers on the same street, both planning to list this spring, both with a minor variance in the picture.

The first filed an application with the Committee of Adjustment to legalize a rear addition. The hearing hasn’t happened yet. Her questions: what happens to the application if the house sells before the hearing, and what can she honestly tell a buyer about something that hasn’t been decided?

The second already has a signed decision granting his variance for a wider driveway. It was made eight days ago. His questions are different: what conditions came with it, does a buyer inherit them, who could still appeal, and what does the purchase agreement need to say?

Same street, same kind of relief, two different files. The way through both is to follow the application through its life, from filed, to decided, to the end of the appeal window, and look at what the Planning Act says at each stage.

Stage 1: the application is still pending

Under s.45(1), an application comes from “the owner of any land, building or structure” affected by the zoning by-law, “or any person authorized in writing by the owner.” That is the whole of what the section says about who the applicant is.

What it does not say is what happens if the owner changes while the application is still open. The Act has no clause on transferring a pending application to a new owner, and no clause saying one ends on a sale. If the first seller’s house could close before her hearing, whether the buyer needs to step in as applicant or give a fresh written authorization is a question the statute leaves open. That is one to put to the committee’s secretary-treasurer and to a real estate lawyer before the listing goes live.

The timeline is also partly outside her hands. Section 45(4) says the hearing “shall be held within thirty days after the application is received by the secretary-treasurer.” But s.45(6) also lets the committee adjourn the hearing or reserve its decision, so a hearing date is not the same as a decision date. And notice of the application goes out before the hearing under s.45(5), in the manner and to the people the regulations prescribe.

One detail works in an applicant’s favour: s.45(1.0.2) says that criteria not in force on the day the owner made the application do not apply to it. A criteria by-law passed after filing does not change the test the committee applies.

Stage 2: the decision is issued, so read the document

According to the Planning Act (Government of Ontario, 2026 consolidation), once the committee decides, s.45(8.1) requires the decision to be in writing, signed by the members who concur, with reasons, and with a brief explanation of the effect, if any, that written and oral submissions had on it. For a seller, that document is the record of what was actually granted, and it is the thing a buyer’s lawyer will want to see.

Three parts of it matter for a sale:

• Time. Section 45(9) allows a variance to be granted “for such time … as the committee considers advisable and as are set out in the decision.” The Planning Act sets no expiry of its own. If there is a time limit, it is printed in the decision.
• Terms and conditions. The same subsection allows the committee to attach terms and conditions. Whether any remain unsatisfied at the time of sale is something to read off the decision, condition by condition.
• Agreements with the municipality. Under s.45(9.1) the committee may require the owner to sign one or more agreements with the municipality covering some or all of those conditions, and that requirement has to be set out in the decision.

The third item is the one that can follow the property to the next owner. Under s.45(9.2), such an agreement may be registered against the land, and the municipality may enforce it against the owner and, subject to the Registry Act and the Land Titles Act, against any and all subsequent owners of the land.

What a seller is holding at each stage

Stage 3: the appeal window and who can use it

The decision is not the end of the file. Under s.45(10), the secretary-treasurer has to send a certified copy to the applicant, and to anyone who appeared at the hearing and filed a written request for notice, not later than ten days from the making of the decision, together with a notice of the last day for appealing.

The appeal period itself is set by s.45(12): an appeal may be filed “within 20 days of the making of the decision.” The clock starts when the decision is made, not when the letter arrives. If the copy comes in on day 10, half of the 20-day window has already run by the time the seller reads it. For the second seller, whose decision is eight days old, the window is still open.

Who may appeal is now a short list. Since the More Homes Built Faster Act, 2022 amended s.45(12) (2022, c. 21, Sched. 9, s. 13, in force November 28, 2022), the appellants are:

• the applicant;
• the Minister;
• a specified person that has an interest in the matter; or
• a public body that has an interest in the matter.

Both terms are defined in s.1(1). “Specified person” is a closed list: electric and gas utilities, Ontario Power Generation, Hydro One, pipeline and railway companies, telecommunication infrastructure providers, NAV Canada, certain airport operators, aggregate licensees, certain environmental approval holders and registrants, and the owners of some of those operators’ lands. “Public body” means a municipality, a local board, a hospital, a provincial or federal ministry, agency or official, or a First Nation. A neighbour appealing simply as a nearby resident is not on either list. Under s.45(12.1), the current version of s.45(12) applies to any appeal filed on or after that 2022 date, even for a decision made earlier.

If no notice of appeal is given within the 20 days, s.45(14) makes the decision “final and binding,” and the secretary-treasurer files a certified copy with the municipal clerk. If an appeal is filed, the outcome is not limited to yes or no: s.45(18) lets the tribunal dismiss the appeal or make any decision the committee could have made on the original application, which can include different conditions.

Stage 3, in Toronto: the appeal goes to TLAB

Outside Toronto, the “Tribunal” in s.45(12) is the Ontario Land Tribunal, as defined in s.1(1) of the Planning Act, unless the municipality has set up its own local appeal body under s.8.1 and given it s.45(12) appeals.

Toronto has its own route. Section 115 of the City of Toronto Act, 2006 lets the City create an appeal body and empower it to hear appeals under s.45(12) of the Planning Act; once that by-law is in place, s.115(6)(c) says those appeals “shall be made to the appeal body, not to the Ontario Land Tribunal.” According to the City of Toronto (2026), the Toronto Local Appeal Body (TLAB) hears and decides appeals of Committee of Adjustment decisions on minor variances and consents, and it took over those powers from the Ontario Municipal Board on May 3, 2017.

For a Toronto seller, that changes the name on the appeal, not the clock. The 20 days and the list of who may appeal still come from s.45(12).

Stage 4: how the agreement of purchase and sale deals with it

Nothing in s.45 says a sale cannot close while an application is pending or while the appeal period is running; the Act simply does not address the sale. The way a purchase agreement handles an unfinished variance is through a condition, and the standard OREA wording for that is clause ZONING-1, “Condition – Re-zoning/Minor Variance.”

The clause text reads: “This Offer is conditional upon the [Buyer/Seller] obtaining at the [Buyer’s/Seller’s] expense, a [re-zoning/minor variance], to allow for [specify exact variance/use] for said property.” It continues that both parties agree to proceed diligently, and that unless the named party gives written notice by a set date that the condition is fulfilled, the offer becomes null and void and the deposit is returned to the buyer in full without deduction.

The bracketed choices produce two versions with different mechanics:

• Seller obtaining. The seller is the party obtaining the variance, at the seller’s expense, and the seller gives the written notice that the condition is fulfilled.
• Buyer obtaining. The buyer is the party obtaining it, at the buyer’s expense, and the buyer gives that notice.

In both versions the blank after “to allow for” is where the specific variance or use is described, and the date line sets the deadline for the notice. The OREA note attached to the clause adds that if the buyer wants to keep the right to purchase even if the variance is not approved, a waiver should be included. These are drafting points in a contract, settled between the parties and their lawyers; the Planning Act does not dictate which version a deal uses.

What to have in hand before listing

Grouped by the document each item lives in.