How Selling Your Markham Home Works, From Decision to Closing

The short answer

Selling a house in Markham is a sequence and each stage has its own paperwork, its own person in charge and its own risks. This guide is the map. For the detail on commission, deposits, closing day, probate and powers of attorney we link to the posts that cover them, so you get the order here and the depth there.

Stage	Main job	What you sign or receive
1. Decide and plan	Settle your reasons, your timing and your next home	Nothing yet
2. Choose a brokerage	Interview agents and read the agreement	Representation agreement
3. Prepare	Gather facts, documents and the home itself	Accurate listing details
4. Market and show	Photos, listing, showings	Showing ground rules
5. Offers	Review, negotiate, accept	Agreement of purchase and sale
6. Conditions	Satisfy or waive each one	Waivers or amendments
7. Closing	Legal transfer and keys	Documents at your lawyer’s office
8. After the sale	Tax reporting and moving on	Tax return entries

Step 1: Deciding to sell and planning the timeline

Before any paper is signed, the useful work is yours. What do you need the sale to do and when? RECO’s seller’s checklist tells you to plan for timing: if you are buying another home, check whether the closing dates of the two transactions line up and have a contingency plan in case they do not.

That one line is where many plans are won or lost. Whether to sell before you buy is its own decision and we cover it in our post on selling first or buying first. If you are selling for someone else, the authority question comes first. Our guides to selling a house in probate and to a power of attorney selling a house explain who is allowed to sign.

You can also ask for a home valuation at this stage. It costs nothing to compare what your home might offer against what you need.

Step 2: Choosing a brokerage and signing the representation agreement

This is the first document with real consequences. RECO calls it a representation agreement and a seller’s version may be called a listing agreement. Here is what RECO says about it:

• It must be in writing and presented to you as soon as possible.
• It identifies the specific property being sold.
• It can be a brokerage agreement, where the whole brokerage represents you or a designated agreement, where one named representative does. Designated representation was introduced on December 1, 2023.
• Any service you expect, such as particular marketing, must be written into the agreement or a schedule. Do not assume it will be provided.
• The expiry date must appear prominently on the first page. RECO says agreements can last a day, weeks or months.
• Most agreements include a holdover clause. If you sell after the expiry but within the holdover period, you may still owe the commission. There is no standard length.
• You are not required to agree to multiple representation, which is when one brokerage acts for both seller and buyer. The agreement should say what happens if it comes up.
• The agreement should list every way it can end and you should check each one for penalties or costs.

On fees, RECO says you and the brokerage set the amount. RECO, government bodies and real estate boards do not approve it. It can be a fixed dollar amount, a percentage of the sale price or both, but it cannot be based on the gap between the listing price and the sale price. The agreement must also say what you pay, if anything, to compensate the buyer’s brokerage. Our guide to real estate commission in Ontario goes through this in full.

RECO’s checklist adds a practical step: confirm the agent’s registration using RECO’s search, check references and, if you want a second opinion, get independent legal advice before you sign.

Step 3: Preparing the home and the facts

RECO’s seller’s checklist focuses on accuracy. Make sure listing details are correct, including square footage, renovations, property taxes, lot dimensions and what is and is not included, such as the water heater, appliances, light fixtures and window coverings. RECO recommends backing the details with invoices, receipts or other documentation.

For the tax figure, your city bill is the place to start. Our post on Markham property tax shows how the bill is worked out, so the number in your listing matches what you actually pay.

You also have a say in who comes through the door. RECO suggests talking with your agent before any showing or open house to set ground rules, removing valuables and securely storing anything with personal information, such as credit card statements and receipts. RECO also publishes a page on lockboxes that describes the benefits and risks of using one for key access, so ask your agent how access will work before you agree to it.

This is also the stage to look at the market around you. Our page on Markham house prices explains what the published figures show and what they do not.

Step 4: Marketing and showings

Your brokerage lists the home and arranges showings, subject to what the agreement says. This stage depends most on the services you wrote into the agreement, so keep it in front of you. If the marketing you expected is not on the page, raise it before the listing goes live.

Some decisions stay with you at this stage, such as when the home can be shown and what is off limits. The ground rules you set in step 3 apply from the first showing.

Step 5: Offers

When an offer arrives, your agent presents it and advises you. The decisions are yours. RECO sets out the rules that protect both sides:

• The details of any offer stay confidential between you and your agent unless you direct your agent to share them.
• Your agent must give the number of offers to every buyer who submitted a written offer. You can direct your agent to share the number with other interested buyers too.
• Before any offer content is shared, you must give your agent clear written direction. You can give it before or after offers arrive and change it at any time.
• Personal or identifying information in offers can never be shared.

With competing offers, RECO lists four paths: accept the best offer, negotiate with one buyer and reject the others, negotiate with one buyer while telling the others their offers are set aside during those talks or reject all offers. RECO also warns that if you share offer content, some buyers may refuse to take part or may protect their offers and buyers may walk away during negotiations.

An open offer process, sometimes called open bidding, is the version where a seller shares some information about competing offers. RECO says the seller decides how much to share, if any and buyers should not expect the content, including the price, to be shared.

An accepted offer becomes the agreement of purchase and sale, a binding contract. Read every clause before you sign and have your lawyer review it. The deposit that comes with it is covered in our post on the deposit on a house in Ontario.

Step 6: Conditions and firming up

Many offers carry conditions, which are terms that must be satisfied or waived by a deadline written into the agreement. We do not state typical lengths, because they are negotiated in each contract. Ask your lawyer to look at any waiver or amendment before you sign it, since each one changes the agreement.

If you are also buying, this is the point where your two timelines have to line up. RECO’s advice to have a contingency plan for mismatched closing dates is most useful now, before the dates are fixed.

Step 7: Closing

Closing is the stage where your real estate lawyer does most of the work, with the buyer’s lawyer. Your part is to sign what your lawyer sends and to be ready to hand over the keys as the agreement sets out. Our guide to closing day in Ontario explains the timeline and the deadlines on the day, written from the buyer’s side but useful for the order of events.

RECO’s checklist also asks you to budget for the costs of selling: real estate commissions, legal fees, moving expenses and other costs. Add them up early, because they come out of what you receive.

Step 8: After the sale

The sale does not end at the keys. If the home was your principal residence, the CRA says you report the sale on Schedule 3, Capital Gains or Losses and on Form T2091(IND). You designate the home by ticking box 1 at line 17900 of Part 1 of Schedule 3. The CRA says you need only page 1 of the form if the home was your principal residence for every year you owned it or every year but one.

Each family can designate only one home as its principal residence for each year from 1982 onward. The CRA will deny the exemption if the designation is missing from your return and while it accepts a late designation in certain circumstances, a penalty may apply. Our post on the principal residence exemption goes into how it works for downsizers. Confirm the details with an accountant.

What to do next

• Write down your ideal closing date and what has to happen first.
• Ask any agent you interview for a copy of the agreement before you decide.
• Check the fee, the expiry date and the holdover clause line by line.
• Gather your tax bill, receipts and renovation records.
• Line up a real estate lawyer before you accept an offer.

Our sellers page explains how we work with sellers and you can contact us with questions about any stage. This post is general information, not legal or tax advice, so confirm your own situation with a lawyer or accountant.