Tax, Legal & TRESA

Transferring the House to Beat Creditors: How Ontario’s Fraudulent Conveyances Act Undoes It

An Ontario owner signs the house over to a spouse or child for a nominal price to dodge creditors. How the Fraudulent Conveyances Act lets creditors set it aside — and where an honest buyer's protection starts and stops.

The Half-Hectare Rule: When Your Backyard Is Big Enough for CRA to Tax Part of Your Home Sale

Ontario’s principal residence exemption covers your home and its land — but only up to half a hectare (about 1.24 acres). Beyond that, the Income Tax Act deems the excess land not to count, unless you can establish it was necessary — not merely desirable — for living there. Where the rule actually lives in the Act, and what it takes to rebut the exclusion.

How an Ontario Property Ends Up Sold for Unpaid Taxes

Thinking about bidding on an Ontario tax-sale property? Before you tender, get clear on what you are actually buying: an as-is parcel with no guaranteed possession, a title the municipality will not warrant, a 20% deposit, and 14 days to pay the balance if you win — plus how the years-long arrears process works and where the sale money goes.

A Support-Arrears Debt on Your Title Search: It Is Not a Lien — It Is a Writ That Can Add Aliases

Found a support-arrears execution on a title search against a name like the seller's — or your own? Before anything else, ask whether the debt even belongs to the registered owner: FRSAEA s.44(2.1) lets a support creditor add aliases and spelling variations to the writ, and Land Titles Act s.136(6) and s.136(7) make a mismatched name decisive at the land registrar. The instrument actually named a lien — s.43 — is personal-property-only (real property appears zero times) and never reaches title; what can sit on land is a s.44 writ of seizure and sale or, separately, a s.42 charge. Broker Arthur Zhao explains how to tell which one you are looking at, and how the s.44(6) recording gap can move your closing date.

Not Just for Non-Resident Sellers: Why Every Ontario Estate Trustee Needs a CRA Clearance Certificate Before Distributing

Many Ontario executors think the CRA clearance certificate is a non-resident-seller thing. It is not. Income Tax Act s.159(2) requires the legal representative of any estate to obtain a certificate before distributing property; skip it and s.159(3) makes you personally liable up to the value distributed. Even keeping the house for yourself counts as a distribution (s.159(3.1)). Broker Arthur Zhao explains how this differs from the s.116 non-resident certificate and what it means for your selling timeline.

Two ID Checks, Two Rulebooks: Why Your Ontario Real Estate Lawyer Verifies You Even After Your Agent Already Did

Cleared your agent’s ID check, then handed the same passport to your closing lawyer? The second pass is not duplication — the lawyer works from the Law Society of Ontario’s By-Law 7.1, a rulebook entirely separate from the federal PCMLTFA/PCMLTFR regime your agent answers to. This guide walks the lawyer’s side: why the duty splits into identification and verification, the three ways a lawyer can confirm who you are, the $7,500 aggregate cap on cash to a lawyer, when the source-of-funds question is triggered, which clients are exempt, and why Ontario lawyers — despite the wording of the federal regulations — do not report you to FINTRAC. Broker Arthur Zhao explains.

You Already Bought Title Insurance — Ontario Also Has a Public Land Titles Assurance Fund. What Does Each Actually Cover?

Ontario’s Land Titles Act quietly bars your title insurer from claiming against the public Land Titles Assurance Fund — and that single prohibition (s.59(1)(e)(f)) is the clearest guide to which protection is actually yours. This guide separates a private indemnity contract you bought from the province’s statutory compensation of last resort (s.57(4)(c), a six-year clock, the Director of Titles), keeps both apart from RECO deposit insurance, and flags the 2024 amendments. By licensed broker Arthur Zhao.

Someone Slips at Your Open House — Are You Liable? Ontario’s Occupiers’ Liability Act, Explained for Sellers and Landlords

Someone gets hurt at your open house or in a unit you rent out — and the first thing Ontario law wants to know is not whether an accident happened, but whether your care was reasonable. This guide anchors on that single test in the Occupiers’ Liability Act (s.3), then works outward from it: who can actually be liable (the “occupier” — and there can be more than one, s.1), how little time an injured visitor may have to sue (for snow or ice, just 60 days — s.6.1), when pointing at your snow contractor works (s.6), whether a warning sign helps, and where a landlord gets pulled in (s.8). Broker Arthur Zhao explains.