How selling a house in Durham Region works

The first meeting happens at the property, not in an office, because in Durham the lot, the road and what backs onto the yard change the number as much as the finishes do. Randy or Alexander walks the house, asks about the roof, the furnace, the windows, any additions and any permits, and leaves with what is needed to write a valuation you can question line by line. Before the team offers any service, Ontario's regulator requires that you receive the RECO Information Guide, which explains in plain language what representation means, what a self-represented party is and how multiple representation works. The seller representation agreement comes next: it names the services, the term and the way remuneration is calculated, and that remuneration is negotiated between you and the brokerage rather than set by any rule. These steps have run this way since TRESA took full effect on December 1, 2023, which also rewrote how offers are handled, covered further down. Nothing is listed until you have read both documents and asked whatever you want to ask.

Preparation is sorted by what your likely buyer will inspect first. For an urban house in Whitby, Ajax, Pickering or Oshawa that means a cleared main floor, working lights, a garage a person can walk into, and receipts for the furnace, the roof and any electrical work. For a rural property in Uxbridge, Scugog, Brock or north Clarington it means paperwork: the well record, which the drilling contractor was required to file with the province and which can be looked up on Ontario's well record map, a recent bacteriological water test, and a septic pump-out receipt or inspection report. For a condominium apartment in Pickering or a condo townhouse in Bowmanville the team orders the status certificate early, since the corporation has ten days to deliver it for a fee the Condominium Authority puts at no more than one hundred dollars including tax. For a two-unit house in Oshawa, the city's registration by-law applies and an unregistered unit has to be described as such. Finally, the lawyer pulls title to look for a rental-equipment notice of security interest; since June 6, 2024 consumer NOSIs are deemed expired, but an old one may still need deleting before closing.

The listing goes on the TRREB MLS system, which feeds the portals and the saved-search alerts that regional buyers rely on, and the team times the launch so the home appears mid-week, ahead of the weekend when Toronto households drive the 401 and tour Pickering, Ajax, Whitby and Oshawa in one loop. Photography is professional everywhere; acreage and waterfront get drone footage because the boundary, the barn and the shoreline are the product. The written description does the disclosure work up front. If the lot sits in a conservation authority's regulated area, the listing says so and names the authority, which is generally Toronto and Region Conservation in Pickering and Ajax, Central Lake Ontario Conservation in Oshawa, Whitby and west Clarington, Kawartha Conservation around Lake Scugog and the Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority in Brock. Each offers a property inquiry or an online regulated-area map, and the team checks before launch rather than letting the buyer's lawyer make the discovery. Showings run through an online booking system with the windows you set, and the team attends the ones that matter.

Ontario's offer rules changed with TRESA and they favour the seller who has decided things in advance. Two rules are fixed. Any buyer who has put a written offer in front of you must be told how many competing offers exist, and the terms of those offers, price, deposit, conditions and closing date, cannot be shared with anyone unless you give your agent clear written direction to share them; the personal details of other bidders are never shared. Beyond that, you choose. You can review offers as they arrive or set a presentation date, and RECO's bulletin on pre-emptive offers requires the team to hold your written instructions for that situation before it arises: ignore early offers until the date, look only at ones above a stated figure, or be told one exists without seeing its terms. If you do decide to consider an early offer, everyone who booked a showing, viewed the home or signalled an intention to offer must be told in writing that the date has moved. Conditions are the other decision: financing, inspection, a well and septic test, a status certificate review or the sale of the buyer's own home each carry a different risk, and the team walks you through the trade before you sign.

Once every condition is waived or fulfilled the agreement is firm, and the deposit sits in the listing brokerage's trust account until closing. Your lawyer takes over the sequence: a payout statement from your lender, which will include any prepayment penalty on a closed mortgage, the statement of adjustments that splits the year's property taxes and, where the home is on municipal services, the Region's water and sewer account between you and the buyer, and the discharge of the mortgage at closing. Utilities are transferred rather than closed, and the local electricity distributor differs by municipality, so the team gives you the right contact for your address. You move out by the time set in the agreement, usually early afternoon on closing day, leaving the house broom clean with every chattel named in the offer still in place. The lawyer releases keys once the funds arrive. The Miller team stays on the file until that call comes, because a delayed wire or a missing key is the point where a good sale turns sour, and one phone call fixes most of it.

Since the 2016 tax year the Canada Revenue Agency requires every sale of a principal residence to be reported on Schedule 3 with form T2091, even when the entire gain is exempt; a missed designation must be corrected through an amended return and can attract a penalty. If part of the home earned rent, for example the basement unit in an Oshawa duplex, the sale price and cost base are split between the personal and the income portions and only the personal portion is sheltered. If you sell one home and buy another in the same calendar year, the plus-one rule lets both qualify for that year. A newer federal rule reportedly treats profit on a residential property held for fewer than 365 days as business income unless a listed life event applies, such as a death, a separation, a job relocation or a disability; the team flags this for any client who bought recently, and an accountant confirms how it lands. Estate sales and tenanted properties carry their own reporting, covered in their own guides on this site.

Ask Randy or Alexander Miller for a written valuation of your Durham home; it commits you to nothing and it starts the sequence on the right foot.