Can my lawyer close a deal without title insurance if there wasn't time to bind the policy?

Title insurance is not a legal requirement for an Ontario closing, so a deal can technically close without a policy in place. In practice, though, most Ontario residential closings include title insurance as a standard part of managing risks that a title search alone cannot fully catch, such as fraud, survey issues, or certain existing defects, so proceeding without it is unusual rather than routine.

If there genuinely was not enough time to bind a policy before the scheduled closing, your lawyer will explain what risks that leaves uncovered given your specific property and file, since the right answer depends on what those risks actually are in your situation. Depending on the circumstances, options may include a brief delay to get the policy in place, closing with the understanding that a policy will be bound very shortly afterward, or, in some cases, deciding the specific risk profile does not require it. This is a decision to make with your lawyer's clear explanation of the tradeoffs in front of you, not something to accept or waive without understanding why.