What Does a Real Estate Lawyer Do When Buying or Selling a Home?

Checking the property itself before closing

A real estate lawyer’s job is to handle the legal work involved in transferring ownership of a home, work that a real estate agent is not trained or licensed to do. In Ontario, lawyers provide legal services for “real estate matters, including buying and selling personal or commercial property” as part of the general scope of what a lawyer does under Ontario’s guidance on finding a lawyer or paralegal. In Alberta, the government describes the lawyer’s role in similarly practical terms: making sure “the sale proceeds smoothly and closes on time according to the details in the signed contract,” closing being the final step where ownership formally passes to the buyer, per Alberta’s guide to purchasing a new home.

Before that closing date, the lawyer’s main job is checking the property itself. In Alberta, this means reviewing the real property report, a survey-based document showing the buildings and boundaries on the lot, to look for “encroachments (building over the property line) and violations of land uses,” according to Alberta.ca. In Ontario, a disciplinary decision of the Law Society Appeal Panel describes the equivalent standard work: conducting (or supervising) a “title search, execution search and utility and tax search” on the property, per Purewal v Law Society of Upper Canada. A title search confirms who legally owns the property and whether anyone else has a registered claim against it; an execution search checks whether the seller has unpaid court judgments that could attach to the property.

Reviewing the mortgage and financing terms

The lawyer also reviews the mortgage documents the buyer is about to sign. One federal rule they check against is the cap on penalty interest: under section 8 of the Interest Act, a mortgage lender cannot charge “any fine, penalty or rate of interest” on arrears of principal or interest that is higher than the rate the borrower would otherwise pay when not in arrears. This rule applies to mortgages on real property across Canada, including in Ontario and Alberta.

Where the purchase involves a new or substantially renovated home intended as a primary residence, the lawyer commonly also advises on the federal GST/HST New Housing Rebate, which lets an eligible buyer “recover some of the GST or the federal part of the HST paid” on that purchase, according to the Canada Revenue Agency. Because this rebate is federal, the eligibility rules are the same whether the home is in Ontario or Alberta.

Confirming who is legally allowed to buy

For some transactions, the lawyer’s due diligence also has to cover who is permitted to purchase the property at all. Federally, the Prohibition on the Purchase of Residential Property by Non-Canadians Act allows a superior court, on application of the responsible Minister, to order a residential property “sold in the prescribed manner and under prescribed conditions” where a non-Canadian is convicted of buying it in contravention of the Act. This is a federal restriction that applies in every province, including Ontario and Alberta, so it is one of the checks a lawyer runs before a purchase closes.

Closing day: registering the transfer of land

On closing day itself, the mechanics differ by province because land registration is handled provincially. In Alberta, ownership passes only once the title is updated at the province’s Land Titles Office: an existing home requires the title to “transfer to the buyer,” and even a brand-new home “will need to be registered through the Land Titles Office” for the first time, per Alberta.ca. The lawyer arranges this registration, including paying the government’s registration fee, which under the Land Titles and Surveys Common Documents Fee Schedule is $50 plus $5 for every $5,000 of the value of the land being transferred.

Where a corporation is a party to the deal, Alberta’s Land Titles Act allows the Registrar of Land Titles to accept a lawyer’s own certificate confirming the corporation’s registration status, under section 27(4), rather than requiring separate corporate search documents each time. In Ontario, the lawyer performs the equivalent function of confirming the transaction’s legal requirements are met and coordinating the closing itself, as part of the general real estate legal services described by Ontario.ca, though the specific provincial registration steps and land transfer tax mechanics in Ontario differ from Alberta’s Land Titles Office process and are not detailed here.