When the Property Description in Your Ontario Offer Doesn’t Match the Land

The survey shows a shorter lot, an easement nobody mentioned, or a pie-shaped yard that two numbers can’t describe. Here is what the Form 100 wording actually does in each case, and where your leverage sits.

I’m Arthur Zhao. Picture the week before the Requisition Date: the seller’s survey finally arrives, and the rear lot line sits a few feet closer to the house than the depth you typed into the offer. Nothing about the house has changed. What has changed is that you now need to know what that line on page one of the contract actually promised you.

The REAL PROPERTY box on an Ontario Agreement of Purchase and Sale (OREA Form 100) looks like paperwork. It is really the definition of what you are buying, and each way it can be wrong is handled by a different part of the form. Below are the five mismatches that come up, what the printed wording does with each one, who is in a position to spot it, and what you can do about it.

The wording you are working with

The form asks for an address, the street and side it fronts on, the municipality, and then two lines that matter most here: “and having a frontage of ____ more or less by a depth of ____ more or less” and “and legally described as ____ (the ‘property’)”. Under the legal description blank, the form adds a small instruction: (Legal description of land including easements not described elsewhere).

Everything below is about what happens when one of those blanks doesn’t match the ground, the title or what you were told.

Mismatch 1: the legal description is wrong or incomplete

What it looks like: the wrong lot or plan number, a description copied from a neighbouring listing, or a description that captures the main lot but leaves out a part (for example, a separate strip at the rear that was added to the property later).

How the contract handles it: the legal description is the line that ties your agreement to a specific parcel in the land registry. Paragraph 10 then promises good title to that property, free of registered restrictions, charges, liens and encumbrances other than the listed exceptions. If the description points at the wrong land, the title promise is pointing at the wrong land too.

Who catches it: your lawyer, when searching title. In Ontario’s online land registry, a property can be searched by PIN, street address, registered instrument number or map, and the parcel register for that PIN carries its own property description, which can be compared against the offer.

Your lever: get the description right before you sign, ideally copied from the parcel register rather than retyped. If it is found wrong after acceptance, correcting it is a change both parties have to agree to in writing, not something one side fixes alone.

Mismatch 2: an easement nobody wrote down

What it looks like: you learn after acceptance that a neighbour has a registered right-of-way over part of the driveway, or that there is a registered easement through the backyard.

How the contract handles it: paragraph 10 lets the seller deliver title subject to some easements without listing them in the offer: minor easements for domestic utility or telecommunication services to the property or adjacent properties, and easements for drainage, sewers, utility, telecom or cable lines that do not materially affect the use of the property. An easement outside those categories is a different matter. It is not on the list of exceptions, and the legal description blank asks for easements not described elsewhere to be written in.

Who catches it: your lawyer’s title search, if it is done in time.

Your lever: a written objection (a requisition) to the seller before the deadline. According to OREA Form 100 (2026), if the seller is unable or unwilling to remove it and you won’t waive it, the agreement is “at an end” and all monies paid are returned without interest or deduction. After the deadline, apart from objections going to the root of the title, you are deemed to have accepted the seller’s title. The deadline is what gives the objection its force.

Mismatch 3: an irregular lot that two numbers can’t describe

What it looks like: a pie-shaped lot on a crescent that is narrow at the street and wide at the back, a corner lot with a cut-off corner, or a lot whose two side lines are different lengths.

How the contract handles it: the form gives you exactly two blanks, frontage and depth, each qualified by “more or less”. There is no third blank for a rear width or a second side line. For an irregular parcel, the shape lives in the legal description and in whatever survey or plan it refers to, not in the frontage and depth line.

Who catches it: usually you or your agent, by comparing the lot to the survey or the registered plan before writing the offer.

Your lever: if a dimension that the frontage-by-depth line can’t express matters to you (the rear width of a pie lot for a garage or a pool, say), put it in writing in Schedule A, worded with your lawyer. Paragraph 9 is worth remembering here too: the form says there is no representation or warranty that your future intended use will be lawful, except as specifically provided in the agreement.

Mismatch 4: the survey disagrees with the numbers in the offer

What it looks like: the frontage or depth on the seller’s survey is smaller than what was written into the agreement.

How the contract handles it: the “more or less” wording signals that the figures are approximate. The form does not say how far off they can be, and I won’t put a number on it here: whether a particular difference matters, and what you can do about it, depends on how material it is and on the rest of the agreement. That is a question for your lawyer on the facts.

Who catches it: anyone who reads the survey, provided there is one. Paragraph 12 is narrow on this point. The buyer can’t require production of a survey that the seller doesn’t have or control; if the buyer asks, the seller must deliver any sketch or survey within the seller’s control as soon as possible and before the Requisition Date. There is no promise of a new or current survey.

Your lever: ask for the seller’s survey in writing right after acceptance, so it reaches your lawyer while title objections are still open. If dimensions are central to your decision, negotiate the protection into the offer itself before you sign.

Mismatch 5: the listing says one size, the contract says another

What it looks like: the MLS listing or feature sheet shows one lot size; the offer shows a different one, or leaves the line vague.

How the contract handles it: paragraph 26 decides this. According to OREA Form 100 (2026), the agreement, including any attached Schedule, is the entire agreement between buyer and seller, and there is no representation, warranty, collateral agreement or condition affecting it other than as expressed in it. The same paragraph says that where an added provision conflicts with the standard pre-set wording, the added provision supersedes it to the extent of the conflict.

Who catches it: you, before signing. Once the offer is accepted, the listing is not part of the deal.

Your lever: if you are relying on a figure from the listing, write it into the agreement. A sentence you add in Schedule A carries more weight than the printed wording it conflicts with; a sentence that stayed in the listing carries none inside the contract.

What the REAL PROPERTY wording promises, and what it doesn’t

Who does what before the description is locked in

The three people who touch this section each have a different job.