The Process of Selling a House in Quebec: Steps and Timelines

Between the first meeting with a broker and the signing at the notary, a residential sale goes through nine steps. Each one is attached to a specific document, and it is that document, not the habits of the parties, that decides what you have to do and within what deadline. Here is the real sequence, form by form.

The 9 steps to sell a house in Quebec

1. Sign the contrat de courtage vente, a mandatory OACIQ form.
2. Fill out the Déclarations du vendeur sur l’immeuble (DV) with the broker.
3. Check the certificat de localisation and gather the titles.
4. Set the asking price from objective elements and comparables.
5. Publish the listing sheet and organize the showings.
6. Respond to promises to purchase: accept, refuse or counter.
7. Follow the fulfilment of the buyer’s conditions: inspection, financing, review of documents.
8. Prepare the documents for the notary, including the mortgage balance.
9. Sign the deed of sale at the notary and vacate the premises on the occupancy date.

The process of selling a house in Quebec starts with two forms

The first meeting commits you to nothing. The day you sign, you fill out two documents.

The first is the contrat de courtage vente (the listing brokerage contract), a mandatory OACIQ form. Its term is not imposed on you: you are the one who writes in the end date, and if that box is left blank, the contract ends 30 days after it is entered into. Read the listing brokerage contract clause by clause before you sign.

The second is the Déclarations du vendeur sur l’immeuble form, the DV. The OACIQ guideline is explicit: the broker fills it out with you when the listing contract is taken, then annexes it to the fiche descriptive (the listing sheet) and to any promise to purchase received. The broker has to question you whenever an answer is vague, obtain the invoices and permits that support your declarations, and update it as soon as something new comes up. What you write there follows the file all the way to the notary: the DV form in detail.

What the law requires of the seller

Article 1716 of the Civil Code sets the base: the seller is bound to deliver the property and to warrant its ownership and quality. These warranties exist by operation of law, without having to be stipulated in the contract. The Promesse d’achat form repeats it at clause 10.1: the property is sold with the legal warranty of ownership and quality, unless otherwise stipulated at clause 12.1. A sale without the legal warranty therefore has to be written down.

Article 1719 requires the seller to hand over the titles, a copy of the deed of acquisition, of the previous titles and of the certificat de localisation in the seller’s possession. Article 1723 requires the seller to warrant that the property is free of all rights except those declared. These three articles explain the order of the steps that follow.

The certificat de localisation, the item that delays the most files

As soon as the listing contract is signed, the broker has to verify whether you hold a certificat de localisation (a land surveyor’s certificate of location), how old it is, what has been added since it was issued, and examine its content. If there is none, if it is no longer valid, or if it does not reflect the current state of the premises, the broker has to recommend that you have a new one produced.

Why so early? Because clause 10.3 of the Promesse d’achat form requires you to give the buyer an authentic copy of your deed of acquisition and of your certificat de localisation, and that certificate must reflect any cadastral operation or renovation, the current physical state of the premises, private law limitations such as a servitude, and public law ones. The form gives the examples: heat pump, deck, fence, shed, pool. A buyer who wants a different certificate pays for it.

A certificate more than ten years old raises a separate problem: the acquisitive prescription period under article 2917 of the Civil Code is 10 years, and the OACIQ ranks a stale certificate among the situations to raise as soon as the contract is taken. Having a new certificate produced by an arpenteur-géomètre (land surveyor) takes time, and that time varies. That is why it is settled when the listing contract is signed, not the day a promise to purchase arrives.

Listing sheet, exposure and showings: the actual listing

The asking price is set before publication. Under the OACIQ guideline, the broker helps the seller establish market value from objective elements and comparables (section 76 of the brokerage regulation). Situate your starting point with a home value estimate.

The fiche descriptive is the first source of information the public consults. The OACIQ is clear: the information published must be accurate, verified and up to date, and the broker has to be able to demonstrate that it is accurate. It is verified before publication, not after.

The listing sheet is not frozen. As soon as a relevant fact is brought to the broker’s attention, an inspection report, an expert opinion, a special assessment, the broker has to correct the fiche and the Déclarations du vendeur using a Modifications form.

Then come the distribution to the inter-agency services, the showings and the feedback.

How long it takes to sell a house in Quebec

The total time is made up of three distinct periods.

Before the first accepted promise. The APCIQ’s Centris statistics publish the average number of days on the market every month, by area and by property type. In September 2026:

These averages change from month to month and do not predict the time for a specific property: the asking price, condition and area make it vary. See what makes selling time vary in Laval and in Montreal.

Between acceptance and the lifting of conditions. These are the deadlines written into the promise to purchase, detailed below, plus the deadlines printed on the form.

Until the deed of sale. This is the date written at clause 11.1, negotiated with the buyer, and the occupancy date at clause 11.2.

The promise to purchase: accept, refuse, or counter

The buyer is bound irrevocably until an hour and a date the buyer writes in at clause 14.1. If you do not accept within that window, the promise becomes null. The form adds two sentences many sellers discover too late: any refusal on your part renders the promise null and void, and any counter-proposal has the same effect as a refusal.

In practice, you cannot counter and then go back to the initial offer. Each counter-proposal cancels the previous ones, and the last one has to list every item included and excluded that was absent from the initial promise. The agreement that binds you will be the promise as modified by that last counter-proposal.

The OACIQ recommends responding to every promise received, even to refuse it. The broker, for their part, has to present all of them to you.

The buyer’s conditions, and the written deadline behind each one

An accepted promise is not a sale. It opens a period during which the buyer carries out the conditions, each with its own clock. Deadlines left blank are negotiated and vary from one transaction to the next; those printed on the form are not negotiable.

The inspection. Clause 8.1 makes the promise conditional on the buyer having the property inspected within an agreed number of days. If the inspection reveals a factor likely to significantly reduce the value or the income of the property, or to increase its expenses, the buyer has to notify you in writing and give you a copy of the report no later than the fourth day following the expiry of that period, before 8 p.m. The promise then becomes null as soon as you receive that notice together with the report. If the buyer does not give notice within the period provided, the condition is deemed waived. A negative report therefore opens a way out, not an automatic price reduction: an adjustment goes through a new signed document.

The financing. The buyer undertakes to make good faith efforts to obtain the loan, and has to provide you within the agreed period with a copy of a lender’s commitment. That commitment often depends on the appraisal the lender has done on the property, which is the lender’s own and not the market’s. If there is no commitment, you have five days after the expiry of the period to react in writing: either require a new application to a lender you designate, or render the promise null. If you do nothing within those five days, it becomes null anyway.

The documents. At clause 9.1, you deliver the listed documents within the agreed period. A buyer who is not satisfied, or who has not received them, has to notify you in writing within seven days following the expiry of that period. These notices are recorded on the Avis et suivi de réalisation de conditions form (notice and follow-up on the fulfilment of conditions), so that neither party can claim later to have received nothing.

A defect or irregularity reported after the conditions are fulfilled. The sale is not cancelled automatically. Clause 10.5 covers a defect or irregularity affecting the title to the property or your declarations and obligations in the promise, reported before the deed of sale. It gives you 21 days from the written notice to remedy it at your expense or to advise that you will not remedy it. The buyer then has five days to buy anyway or to render the promise null. Have a notary read the notice before you answer.

If you have to buy at the same time. The form has no printed box for a condition tied to the sale of the buyer’s property, or of yours. Such a condition, if negotiated, is written at clause 12.1 or in an annex, and the occupancy date at clause 11.2 can be aligned with your own purchase. The options are set out in selling before buying: the clauses.

Selling a house that still has a mortgage

This is the most common case, and it does not block the sale. Article 1723 requires the seller to discharge the property of the hypothecs that encumber it. Clause 11.4 of the promise gives the notary the irrevocable instruction to pay the broker’s remuneration out of the sums coming to you, after payment of all prior and hypothecary claims and of the notary’s fees, notably for the cancellation of those claims. The lender is therefore repaid out of the sale price.

The prepayment penalty. According to the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada, a lender may charge a penalty if you pay back your entire mortgage before the end of the term, including when you sell your home. It is usually the higher of two amounts: three months’ interest on what you still owe, or the interest rate differential. If you are buying another property, ask the lender whether the mortgage can be ported, which keeps the rate and the terms. Ask for the calculation in writing before you set your net price: breaking a mortgage and the penalty.

The last step of the selling process: at the notary

Once the conditions are fulfilled, the deed of sale is signed before the notary identified at clause 11.1, on or before the date written in. The notary first examines the titles: that the title is unassailable, that you are the true owner, that you have the right and the capacity to sell, whether your spouse has to consent, and what mortgage charges encumber the property. With the certificat de localisation, the notary verifies the dimensions of the land, that the building is indeed erected on the lot being sold, compliance with zoning, encroachments and rights of way.

The notary then calculates the adjustments provided at clause 11.3: general and special property taxes, fuel reserves, income and expenses, as of the date of signing or of occupancy. The notary obtains the lender’s release, consenting to the cancellation of its hypothec, and holds the funds until the deed is registered at the Bureau de la publicité des droits (the land registry office).

What the seller brings. The Chambre des notaires publishes a list common to the buyer and the seller: full name and contact details of the parties, address of the property, complete offer to purchase, up-to-date certificat de localisation (less than 10 years old), tax bills, civil status documents (marriage, divorce, contract) and any information requested by the notary. On the seller’s side, the promise to purchase and the title examination add identification, the deed of acquisition, the mortgage balance statement, rental contracts taken over by the buyer under clause 11.7, invoices for the inclusions, banking information, and the spouse’s consent if the property is the family residence. Until occupancy, you remain responsible for keeping the premises in the state they were in at the time of the showings: how the signing at the notary unfolds.

To go further, read how to prepare your home for sale and the listing brokerage contract clause by clause.

Unsure about the order of the steps, or about a deadline that is already running? Write to me. I will tell you where you stand in the sequence, even if your property is listed with another broker.

Georges Matar

Residential Real Estate Broker · RE/MAX DU CARTIER INC.

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