Selling a Parent's House in Markham: Who Signs, What Proof and When

The short answer

Selling a parent’s house in Markham starts with one question that has nothing to do with the market: who has the legal authority to sign? There are three possible answers. Each one comes with different paperwork, a different timeline and a different set of questions from the lawyers on both sides.

1. Your parent can still make their own decisions, so they sign.
2. Your parent can no longer manage their property, so an attorney named in a continuing power of attorney for property signs for them.
3. Your parent has died, so the estate trustee signs.

This post walks through each situation, what proof a lawyer will ask for, how a sale lines up with a move to a retirement home or long-term care and the tax basics to raise with an accountant. It is general information, not legal or tax advice. Your family’s lawyer has the final word on your situation.

Situation one: your parent decides and signs

If your parent is mentally capable, the house is theirs to sell and they sign everything themselves: the listing agreement, the agreement of purchase and sale and the closing documents. Adult children can help with almost everything else. You can help plan the move, sort belongings, talk with us about pricing and sit in on meetings with the lawyer if your parent wants you there.

What you cannot do is sign on their behalf without legal authority, even with their verbal blessing. If your parent finds the process tiring, ask their lawyer about the options while they are still capable. Ontario.ca notes that an attorney for property can start acting immediately unless the document says otherwise. So a parent who is fully capable can still choose to have a trusted child handle the paperwork under a power of attorney.

This is also a good time to make sure a continuing power of attorney for property exists at all. A parent who is capable today may not be by the time a sale closes, particularly when a move is health related.

Situation two: an attorney acts under a power of attorney

When a parent can no longer manage their property, the person who signs is the attorney named in their continuing power of attorney for property. Ontario.ca lists “maintaining or selling your house” among the financial decisions an attorney for property can make. Our post on using a power of attorney to sell a house in Ontario covers this route in more depth. Here are the essentials.

What makes it a continuing power of attorney

Under section 7 of Ontario’s Substitute Decisions Act, a power of attorney for property is continuing if it says it is continuing or says the authority can be used while the person is incapable of managing property. A power of attorney without that wording may not work once your parent loses capacity.

Section 10 of the Act requires a continuing power of attorney to be signed in front of two witnesses. The Act lists people who cannot witness, including the attorney or the attorney’s spouse or partner, the grantor’s spouse or partner and the grantor’s child. A lawyer will look at all of this before the house is listed.

The attorney’s duties

Section 38 of the Act applies the duties of a guardian of property to an attorney when the grantor is incapable of managing property. That includes acting with honesty and integrity and in good faith for the parent’s benefit. It also includes a rule that is easy to miss: the attorney should not dispose of property they know is the subject of a specific gift in the parent’s will, unless the sale is necessary to carry out their duties. If the will leaves the house to a particular person, raise that with the lawyer before you list.

If there is no power of attorney

Ontario.ca is direct about this: without an attorney for property, family members, including a spouse, cannot automatically make financial decisions. A relative may apply to the Ontario Superior Court of Justice to be appointed guardian of property. In other cases the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee becomes statutory guardian after a capacity assessment. A spouse, partner or relative can later apply to replace it. Either route takes time, so speak with a lawyer early.

Situation three: the estate trustee sells

A power of attorney stops working when your parent dies. Section 12 of the Substitute Decisions Act lists the grantor’s death as one of the events that terminates a continuing power of attorney. From then on, the estate trustee has authority over the house. Ontario.ca describes the estate trustee as the only person with legal authority to manage or distribute an estate.

When the estate includes a house that does not pass to someone else by right of survivorship, the estate trustee usually needs a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee or a Small Estate Certificate, often called probate. Ontario.ca advises getting that certificate before anyone enters into an agreement of purchase and sale. In practice, this means the court process usually sets the pace of the sale.

Our guide to selling an estate home in Markham covers the probate streams, estate administration tax and the filing deadlines in detail, so we will not repeat them here.

What proof the lawyers will ask for

Every sale of a parent’s house involves a lawyer acting for the seller and another acting for the buyer. Each one wants to see that the person signing has the authority to sign. This table sets out what to have ready. Your own lawyer will confirm the exact list.

Situation	Who signs	What the lawyers will want to see
Parent is capable	Your parent	Your parent’s identification and their own instructions to the lawyer
Parent is incapable, power of attorney in place	The attorney for property	The original continuing power of attorney for property, signed and witnessed properly, plus confirmation it is still in effect
Parent is incapable, no power of attorney	A court-appointed guardian or the Office of the Public Guardian and Trustee	The court order or proof of statutory guardianship
Parent has died	The estate trustee	The will, the death certificate and the estate certificate

If anything on that list is missing or unclear, tell us at the start. Gaps in paperwork are much easier to manage before a buyer is waiting on a closing date.

Timing a sale with a move to retirement or long-term care

Many of these sales are triggered by a move into care. The type of care changes the timeline.

Retirement homes are privately owned and residents pay rent plus fees for any extra services, according to ontario.ca. The Retirement Homes Regulatory Authority regulates them. Because the move date is usually set by agreement with the home, families often have some room to plan the house sale around it.

Long-term care works differently. All applications and admissions to long-term care homes in Ontario are arranged by Ontario Health atHome. According to ontario.ca:

• You can choose up to five homes, in order of preference.
• When a bed is offered, you have 24 hours to accept or reject it and up to five days to move in.
• If you turn down an offer or miss the move-in deadline, you are removed from every waiting list and must wait 12 weeks before reapplying.

That means a long-term care move can happen on a few days’ notice, long before the house is ready to list. Plan for the house to sit empty for a while. Keep the insurance, heating and security in order. Check with your insurer what they require for a vacant home.

Money is usually the next question. Ontario’s long-term care co-payment for basic accommodation is $70.00 a day or $2,129.17 a month as of July 1, 2026. Rates are higher for semi-private and private rooms. Ontario also has a rate reduction program. It says the calculation does not include assets, so a house your parent owns is not counted toward annual net income. Confirm the current rates and rules with Ontario Health atHome before you build a budget around them.

The principal residence exemption basics

When a home is sold for more than it cost, the gain is generally a capital gain. The CRA’s principal residence exemption can reduce or remove the tax on that gain for a home your parent lived in.

Some basics from the CRA:

• The home must be ordinarily inhabited in the year by the owner, their spouse or common-law partner or their child. The CRA’s folio says living there for even a short period in a year can be enough.
• Only one home can be designated as the family’s principal residence for each year.
• The sale must be reported on Schedule 3 and Form T2091(IND) in the year of the sale, even when the exemption covers the full gain.

The parts that need an accountant are the years after your parent moved out and the case where the estate, rather than your parent, sells. The CRA formula is based on the number of years the home was designated as a principal residence. So a long gap between the move and the sale can matter. If your parent has died, our estate home guide explains why an accountant comes before the agent.

Getting the house ready to sell

A house that has been lived in for decades usually needs sorting more than renovating. A practical order:

1. Confirm who has authority to sign, using the sections above, before any money is spent.
2. Ask the family to identify keepsakes and items named in the will before anything leaves the house.
3. Sort what stays, what goes to family, what is donated and what is disposed of. Our senior downsizing checklist breaks this into stages.
4. Fix only what a buyer will notice right away, such as burnt out bulbs, dripping taps and loose handrails.
5. Clean thoroughly and clear the clutter, so buyers see the rooms rather than the contents.
6. Get a current home valuation based on what similar Markham homes have actually sold for recently. Our page on how we sell homes in Markham explains the rest of the process.

Larger updates sometimes make sense and sometimes do not. We will tell you plainly which ones are likely to show up in the price.

How our team helps

Our estate sales service is built around how these sales actually unfold. In practice that means we:

• Start by asking who has authority to sign and what documents exist, then work with your lawyer’s timeline rather than around it.
• Coordinate the listing with a move into retirement or long-term care, including when the house will be sitting empty.
• Keep siblings informed so everyone sees the same information at the same time.
• Prepare a pricing opinion based on recent Markham sales and explain how we reached it.

We are not lawyers or accountants. We will always point you back to them for legal and tax questions.

What to do next

Before you call anyone else, gather four things: the deed or property tax bill, any power of attorney documents, the will if your parent has died and the names of your parent’s lawyer and accountant. With those in hand, one conversation with a lawyer will usually tell you which of the three situations you are in.

When you are ready to talk about the house itself, contact us and we will walk through the next steps with you.