The requisition letter is the buyer's formal list of title problems, delivered to the seller's lawyer by a date fixed in the agreement. After that date, most objections are gone. It is the mechanism that turns a title search into leverage.
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The search starts on title. Ontario land is registered electronically under the <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90l05">Land Titles Act</a>, and the parcel register shows every instrument affecting the property: charges, easements, restrictive covenants, notices, liens, and the transfers making up the chain. Documents are registered electronically through Teraview, and registry records are searched and ordered online through ONLAND, so this is desk work rather than a trip to a registry counter.
Off-title matters just as much. Your lawyer checks for outstanding work orders and deficiency notices, unpaid realty taxes and utility arrears, zoning and building compliance, open building permits that were never closed out, and whether the property is subject to a conservation authority or a heritage designation. A finished-looking renovation with a live permit behind it is a common and expensive find.
Execution searches run against the names of the sellers and, where relevant, prior owners. A writ registered against somebody with a similar name has to be cleared by proving they are a different person, which takes a declaration and time. Corporate sellers need their status confirmed — under Ontario's <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90b16">Business Corporations Act</a> for a provincial company, or the federal Canada Business Corporations Act for a federally incorporated one — so the transfer is signed by someone who can bind the company.
Two statutory traps come up constantly. A conveyance that breaches the subdivision control rules in the <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90p13">Planning Act</a> does not transfer title, so the chain has to be checked for one. And where the property is a matrimonial home, the <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90f03">Family Law Act</a> requires the non-owning spouse to consent to the disposition, meaning a spouse who is not on title still has to sign.
Your agreement sets a date by which the buyer must complete searches and deliver requisitions in writing. After it passes you are generally taken to have accepted the state of the title as you found it, and the objections you did not raise are gone. That is the point of the date: it gives the seller a fixed moment after which they know exactly what they have to fix.
There is a narrow exception. Defects going to the root of title — where the seller simply cannot convey what was promised, or the title is unmarketable and the problem cannot be cured — can still be raised, because no deadline can force you to accept something the seller does not own. Do not plan around this. It is a narrow doctrine and an expensive place to end up.
The date is usually set to leave working time before closing, but agreements get signed with short requisition periods more often than they should. If your closing is soon and the requisition date is sooner, tell your lawyer at the outset so searches go out immediately. Municipal, utility and corporate responses come back on their own schedule, not on yours.
Title insurance has changed the practice. Many defects that once required a requisition — an old unregistered easement, a minor encroachment shown on a survey, a technical gap in the chain — are now insured over rather than argued about, because that is faster and cheaper for everyone. It does not remove the need to search. It changes what you do with what the search finds.
A valid requisition is one the seller is obliged to answer: discharge the mortgage, remove the lien, clear the writ, produce the spousal consent, resolve the work order. Most requisition letters are routine, and most items are answered with a document, an undertaking to discharge on closing, or a direction to the seller's lender. The exchange happens lawyer to lawyer, not client to client.
The standard Ontario agreement gives the seller an exit. If the seller is unable or unwilling to remove or satisfy a valid requisition, and the buyer will not waive it, the agreement ends, the deposit is returned, and the seller is not liable for the buyer's costs. That clause is why an aggressive requisition on a marginal point can hand a seller a way out of a deal they regret.
So requisitions are triaged. Anything that stops you obtaining clear title, or that a lender will not fund against, gets raised. Anything the title insurer will cover on terms you are comfortable with is usually insured over. Anything cosmetic is left alone. That judgment is the actual work, and it is why the letter is drafted by a lawyer rather than generated from a checklist.
Sellers should read the letter the day it arrives. Lender discharge statements take time, liens registered under the <a href="https://www.ontario.ca/laws/statute/90c30">Construction Act</a> take longer, and a work order can require a re-inspection before it is lifted. Our residential fee is a flat $1,354.87, taxes included, with disbursements at cost: see <a href="/pricing">pricing</a>, the <a href="/real-estate">real estate practice</a>, or our note on <a href="/articles/title-requisitions-seller-obligations-ontario">seller obligations</a>.
It is the buyer's lawyer's written list of title requirements and objections, delivered to the seller's lawyer by the requisition date in the agreement. Each item asks the seller to do something before closing: discharge a mortgage, clear a writ, produce a consent, satisfy a work order. It is a formal step in the transaction, not a complaint or a negotiating tactic.
You are generally taken to have accepted the title as it stands, and objections you could have raised are lost. The narrow exception is a defect going to the root of title, where the seller cannot convey what was agreed at all. That is a difficult argument and an expensive one to run. Treat the date as fixed and diarize it the day your file opens.
No. The seller must answer valid requisitions, but the standard agreement lets a seller who is unable or unwilling to satisfy one terminate the deal and return the deposit instead of resolving it. That is why requisitions are triaged. Raising every technical point in a rising market can hand a reluctant seller exactly the exit they were quietly looking for.
Often, and that is now normal practice. Where an insurer will cover a defect on acceptable terms, insuring over it is faster than demanding a fix, and both lawyers usually prefer it. It is not universal: coverage has exclusions, a lender may object, and some defects have to be cleared outright. The decision belongs to your lawyer and to you, not to the seller.
The searches take days rather than hours, because municipal, utility and corporate responses arrive on their own timelines. Answering the letter then takes as long as the slowest item, which is usually a lender's discharge statement. Order everything at the start of the file and you rarely have a problem. Leave it to the final week and you frequently do.
Open your file tonight — a licensed Ontario lawyer will confirm everything with you by tomorrow.