Whose Names Go on the Offer? Filling In the Buyer and Seller Lines on Ontario’s Form 100

The names typed on page one are the names your lawyer has to reconcile with title and ID weeks later. Here is the form, read from top to bottom.

A few days before closing, the buyer’s lawyer searches title and lines up three things: the names on the accepted offer, the registered owners on title, and the ID the clients bring to the signing appointment. When they don’t agree (a seller listed under a name she stopped using years ago, a second owner nobody mentioned, a buyer line that names one person when two are on the mortgage) the fix is usually possible, but it lands at the one point in the deal where nobody has spare time.

Work backwards from almost any of those problems and you end up at the first lines of Form 100. I’m Arthur Zhao. This piece reads the form the way it is printed, top to bottom, stopping at every place where a name or a signature matters, and separating what the form decides for you from what it quietly leaves to you and your lawyer.

Page one, first line: BUYER

The printed instruction under the line is short: (Full legal names of all Buyers). Two words in it do most of the work.

All. If two people are buying together, both names go here. How those two people will hold title (joint tenancy or tenancy in common) is a separate decision that the form does not ask about at all; it is covered in its own article and is worth settling with your lawyer before closing, not after.

Legal. The buyer line is not where you write the name friends use. Write the name as it appears on the government ID you will show your lawyer, because that is what the lawyer will be matching.

A few common variations all live on this same line:

• Buying “in trust.” A buyer sometimes writes their name followed by in trust, often because the final titleholder is not settled yet. What that wording means for who ends up on title, for land transfer tax, and for how a seller reads your offer is a question for your lawyer before you sign. I am not going to give you a rule here, because the consequences depend on facts I would not have.
• A corporation. Use the corporation’s exact registered name, including any number, for example a name in the style of 1234567 Ontario Inc. Numbered-company purchases have their own article.
• A company that does not exist yet. This one has a statutory answer. Under s. 21(1) of Ontario’s Business Corporations Act, a person who signs a contract on behalf of a corporation before it comes into existence is personally bound by it. Under s. 21(2), the corporation can adopt the contract within a reasonable time after it is formed, and the person then stops being bound, subject to the court’s power under s. 21(3).
• An attorney under a power of attorney. The buyer is still the person buying, so the line names that person; the attorney’s role shows up in how the document is signed. That signing method has its own article.

Page one, second line: SELLER

The instruction mirrors the buyer line: (Full legal names of all Sellers). On the seller side, the practical test is whether the line matches the registered owners. A buyer’s agent can ask the listing side for the registered owners’ names before writing the offer, rather than copying them from the listing.

Three situations come up often enough to name:

• More than one owner. Every registered owner belongs on the line, even one who lives elsewhere or has no interest in the sale.
• An owner whose name has changed, for example after marriage. The registered name and the current ID will differ, and the lawyer has to connect them; that case has its own article.
• An owner who has died. Then the person selling is the estate, acting through the estate trustee or trustees. Exactly how that is shown on the line, and what the estate must have in hand before it can close, are lawyer questions; I would not draft that line from a template.

Notice what the seller line does not cover: a spouse who lives in the home but is not on title. The form deals with that person much later, in clause 22 and in the box at the very end.

What the form writes for you vs. what it leaves to you

Clause 22: the Family Law Act warranty

Halfway down the printed clauses, clause 22 reads: Seller warrants that spousal consent is not necessary to this transaction under the provisions of the Family Law Act, R.S.O.1990 unless the spouse of the Seller has executed the consent hereinafter provided.

That is a promise by the seller, and it points to a real rule. According to the Family Law Act (R.S.O. 1990, c. F.3, s. 21(1)), a spouse cannot dispose of or encumber an interest in a matrimonial home unless one of four things is true: (a) the other spouse joins in or consents; (b) the other spouse has released those rights in a separation agreement; (c) a court order authorizes it; or (d) both spouses have registered a designation of a different property as their matrimonial home, and it has not been cancelled.

Two definitions decide whether any of this applies:

• Matrimonial home (s. 18(1)): every property a person has an interest in that is, or at the time of separation was, ordinarily occupied by the person and their spouse as their family residence. Every property, so a family cottage can qualify, and so can a home the couple lived in until they separated.
• Spouse (s. 1(1)): two people who are married to each other (or who entered a void or voidable marriage in good faith). The wider definition that adds cohabiting couples is in s. 29 and applies only to Part III, the support part of the Act. So a common-law partner is not a spouse for this consent rule, although that does not settle every claim a partner might have.

Clause 29: successors and assigns

Clause 29 is one sentence: The heirs, executors, administrators, successors and assigns of the undersigned are bound by the terms herein. OREA’s own annotation of the form explains the main purpose plainly: if one of the parties dies before closing, their heirs and executors are bound by the agreement.

In practice that means a signed deal does not evaporate because a party dies; the estate steps into the seat. It also means the clause is about who is bound, not a built-in way to change who is buying. If you are hoping to add a co-buyer or move the purchase into a company after acceptance, do not assume clause 29 does that for you. Treat it as a change to a signed contract and get your lawyer involved first.

The signature blocks

Each buyer and each seller gets a line marked (Witness) (Buyer or Seller) (Seal) (Date), under the words SIGNED, SEALED AND DELIVERED. OREA’s annotation notes that buyers and sellers sign under seal.

Things worth noticing here:

• One line per name. Every person named on the BUYER or SELLER line should have a matching signature. A name with no signature, or a signature with no name above it, is exactly the kind of mismatch a lawyer flags.
• No preprinted line for a company or an attorney. There is no Authorized Signing Officer line and no attorney line on the form. When a corporation buys or an attorney signs, the wording that shows their authority is something added to the document, and your lawyer should see it before it goes out.
• The seller’s signature carries an instruction. In the same block, the seller irrevocably instructs their lawyer to pay the unpaid balance of commission, together with applicable HST, directly to the brokerage from the sale proceeds before the seller receives anything on completion.
• Electronic signatures. Clause 27 records that the parties consent to electronic signatures under the Electronic Commerce Act, 2000, for this agreement and other documents in the transaction.

The last box on the form: SPOUSAL CONSENT

At the end, after the signatures, sits a short box: The undersigned spouse of the Seller hereby consents to the disposition evidenced herein pursuant to the provisions of the Family Law Act, R.S.O.1990, and hereby agrees to execute all necessary or incidental documents to give full force and effect to the sale evidenced herein. OREA’s annotation describes it as the place where the non-owner spouse signs, which is what makes the clause 22 warranty true.

When the box is left blank, the Act offers two other routes to the same comfort:

• A written statement. Under s. 21(3), a statement by the person disposing of the property, for example that they are not a spouse, or that the property is not and was not ordinarily occupied as the family residence, is deemed sufficient proof that it is not a matrimonial home, unless the buyer had notice to the contrary. Under s. 21(4), an attorney can make that statement on the basis of the attorney’s personal knowledge.
• A court order. Under s. 23(b), a court can authorize the sale if the spouse whose consent is needed cannot be found, is not capable of consenting, or is unreasonably withholding consent.

The phrase unless the buyer had notice to the contrary is the hinge. A statement protects a buyer who had no reason to doubt it, not one who knew otherwise.

A checklist in the order things happen

Grouped by when you would actually do each step, from writing the offer to the week before closing.