A condition is a dated exit. It lets you sign now and confirm later — financing, an inspection, a status certificate — and walk away with your deposit if the answer is bad. Miss the deadline, or waive it badly, and the exit closes behind you.
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Every condition has four moving parts: what has to be satisfied, who it is for, by what date and time, and what happens if nothing is done. The last part matters most. Most Ontario clauses say the agreement becomes null and void and the deposit is returned in full if the condition is not waived or fulfilled by the deadline. Read yours, because the wording is negotiable.
Silence usually ends the deal, but do not rely on it. If your clause requires written notice to terminate, or is drafted so the agreement becomes firm unless you object, doing nothing produces the opposite result from the one you expect. This is the most common drafting trap in a conditional offer, and it is invisible until somebody reads the clause word by word.
A financing condition is not satisfied by a pre-approval. It is satisfied by a lender's commitment on this property, after the appraisal, and appraisals on competitively bid homes come in low often enough to matter. An inspection condition should let you terminate if you are not satisfied in your own discretion, rather than tying your exit to a defect of some particular size or cost.
Conditions for a buyer's benefit can generally be waived by that buyer alone. A condition that depends on a third party doing something — a lender approving, a municipality consenting, a committee granting relief — may not be waivable at all, because you cannot waive someone else's performance. If your plan is to waive, confirm the clause permits it before you rely on that plan.
A waiver says the condition was never met and you are giving up the protection anyway. A notice of fulfilment says the condition was met. They are separate forms and they are not interchangeable. Signing a notice of fulfilment when your financing has not actually been approved is a statement that is not true, and it removes your exit just as effectively as a waiver would.
Both have to be delivered: signed, complete, and received by the other side in the manner the agreement specifies, before the time stated on the deadline date. Email is usually fine where the delivery clause permits it. Handing the form to your own agent is not delivery. If the deadline falls on a weekend, do not assume it moves — check how your agreement counts days.
Once every condition is waived or fulfilled, the agreement is firm. There is no cooling-off period for a resale home in Ontario. A firm buyer who does not close risks the deposit and, beyond that, the seller's actual losses if the property resells for less. That is a claim for the shortfall, the carrying costs and the expenses of reselling, not a capped amount.
Getting your deposit back after a proper exit is administrative, not automatic. The brokerage holding it in trust generally needs a mutual release signed by both parties, or a court order, before it can release the money. Sign the termination and the release together. Our page on <a href="/real-estate-deposit-rules-ontario">deposit rules</a> covers what happens when the other side refuses to sign.
For the days a condition runs, a seller has a buyer who is bound and a property that is not sold. The listing goes conditional, other buyers move on, and if the condition fails the property returns to market carrying the question of why the last deal collapsed. That cost is real, and it is the reason a clean offer sometimes beats a higher conditional one.
The usual answer is an escape clause. It lets the seller keep marketing and, on accepting another offer, require the first buyer to waive within a short notice period or release the deal. It is standard on conditions tied to the sale of a buyer's existing home and less common elsewhere. The notice period is negotiated in the clause itself, so read the number rather than assuming a customary one.
Sellers should also police the mechanics. Insist on written waivers delivered to your lawyer or brokerage, not verbal assurances relayed through agents. Require the deposit on the timeline the agreement sets and, if the deal is structured that way, topped up when conditions clear. A buyer who is already late with a deposit is telling you something useful about how the closing will go.
Do not accept a condition with no end date, no notice mechanism, or a wholly subjective trigger unless you have decided this buyer is worth it. Satisfactory to the buyer, on a long runway, is a free option on your property. Have a lawyer read the offer either way — our residential real estate fee is a flat $1,354.87, taxes included, published on our <a href="/pricing">pricing</a> page alongside the full <a href="/real-estate">real estate practice</a>.
Generally no. Waiving is the act that makes the agreement firm, and there is no cooling-off period on a resale home in Ontario. Your remaining exits are narrow: a genuine failure by the seller to convey what was agreed, a misrepresentation, or a negotiated release you have to persuade the seller to sign. Assume that once the waiver is delivered, you are buying the property.
It depends entirely on your clause. Most Ontario conditions are drafted so the agreement ends automatically and the deposit is returned if the condition is not waived or fulfilled in time. Some are drafted the other way, so the deal firms up unless you give notice. Read the clause on the day the offer is accepted, not on the day it is about to expire.
It is the cheapest information you will ever buy about the property. Dropping it is a real strategic choice, not a formality, and it means accepting the roof, the wiring, the foundation and everything else sight unseen. If you do drop it, consider a pre-offer inspection instead, so you are trading the condition for information rather than for nothing at all.
Yes, and it is far cheaper than fixing the agreement afterwards. A lawyer review condition gives you a short window after acceptance, but the better version is a read-through before submission, while the wording can still change. Bring the draft, the listing and anything the agent has told you about what the seller wants. Terms are much easier to set than to renegotiate.
Only if the agreement lets them. Without an escape clause, the seller is bound to your deal while the condition runs and can take back-up offers only on the basis that they take effect if your deal collapses. With an escape clause, the seller can keep marketing and force you to waive early or release the property. Check which one you signed.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm everything with you by tomorrow.