What Happens if the Seller Dies Before Completion Day in BC

Your offer was accepted. The subjects are removed. Then the seller dies, and nobody can tell you whether you still have a deal. You do. The contract did not die with the seller, and in British Columbia a statute says in terms that the person who ends up running the estate has to give you the conveyance the seller would have had to give. What changes is not whether you buy the home. What changes is who can sign, and when.

The contract does not die with the seller

Three sections of BC law carry this, and they are worth knowing by name, because almost nothing written for buyers names them.

The first is section 150 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act. It says a cause of action or a proceeding “is not annulled by reason only of the death of” a person who had it, or a person who is or may be named as a party. Your right to enforce the contract is not wiped out because the other side died.

The second is section 149 of the same Act. A personal representative — the executor named in a will, or the administrator the court appoints where there is no will — is liable “to the extent of the assets belonging to the estate that come into the personal representative’s possession or control, for the wrongful acts and omissions or breaches of legal duty of the deceased person”. The estate stands behind the seller’s promises, up to what the estate is worth.

The third is the one almost nobody cites, and it is the most useful of the three. Section 72 of the Trustee Act is headed “Conveyance of real estate or agreement for sale by deceased”. Where a person “has entered a contract in writing for the sale and conveyance of land”, and has died “intestate, or without providing by will for the conveyance of the land, estate or interest to the person entitled or to become entitled to the conveyance under the contract”, then the executor or administrator “must make and give to the person entitled to it a good and sufficient conveyance”. The word is must.

Read the gateway carefully, because it is narrower and wider than it looks. Section 72 does not ask whether the will is silent about the property. It asks whether the will provides for the conveyance to you, the buyer under the contract. A will that gives the executor a general power to sell does not do that, so an ordinary will does not take your case out of section 72. A will that specifically directs the house be conveyed to you would.

One more point of housekeeping, because it matters to how a lawyer will frame your position. Section 152 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act lets a personal representative stop being liable under a contract the deceased had not fully performed — but only by satisfying the liabilities that have already accrued, validly assigning the contract to a purchaser, and setting aside an amount, fixed by agreement or by the court, for future claims. It is an exit with conditions attached, not a door the estate can simply walk through.

First question: how did the seller hold title?

Before anything else, ask the conveyancer to pull the title and read the ownership line. This single fact decides whether you are waiting weeks or months.

Joint tenancy: the fast case

Where two or more people hold as joint tenants and one dies, the survivor takes the whole. Section 269 of the Land Title Act, Part 17, says the registrar must not deal with the application unless there is filed either “a certified copy of the grant of probate or grant of administration” or “a certificate of death issued by the appropriate public officer”.

Those two are joined by “or”. The death certificate is a complete alternative. No probate is needed, and that holds whether the survivor is keeping the home or selling it to you. The surviving owner becomes the seller, and the deal can often be rescued with an amendment and a short extension.

The land title office is strict about the paperwork. Its own help page for this filing says “LTSA will not accept photocopied or notarized copies of supporting documents”, and that “A funeral director’s certificate is also not an accepted supporting document”. Those words are on the Land Title and Survey Authority page for a transmission to a surviving joint tenant, last modified 10 October 2025. Note which page that is: it is the joint-tenant route, not the executor route.

Sole owner, or tenant in common: the slow case

Here there is no survivor to take the title. Division 2 of Part 17 applies, and for a death after 24 January 1977 the registrar needs a certified copy of the grant of probate or administration, plus an office copy of the declaration and disclosure document required by section 122 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act. The registrar may dispense with the second document. There is no dispensing with the grant.

Once the personal representative is registered, section 264 gives a small mercy: the representative “is invested with all the title of the deceased owner”, and that title “relates back to and takes effect as and from the date of the death of the deceased”. The gap in the chain closes retroactively. It does not shorten the wait.

There is one newer route worth knowing about, because it was only added on 7 April 2026. Section 266.1 of the Land Title Act now lets the registrar act on a certified copy of a court order made under section 103 or section 132 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act, where that order appoints an administrator and vests title in them. Section 103 is the court’s power to appoint an administrator “pending a proceeding” about the validity of a will or about obtaining or revoking a grant. That administrator has all the rights, powers and duties of a personal representative other than the right to distribute, and acts under the court’s direction. It is not a general fast lane, but where there is a fight about the will it is the mechanism that can move title.

How the seller held title	What the land title office needs	Practical effect on your purchase
Joint tenant with someone who is still alive	A certificate of death, or a certified copy of a grant — either one, under section 269	Fastest route. The surviving owner can sell. Expect an amendment and a short extension.
Sole owner	A certified copy of the grant of probate or administration, plus the section 122 declaration and disclosure document	Slowest route. Nothing registers until the grant issues and the representative is registered as owner.
Tenant in common with someone else	Same as sole owner, for the deceased’s share only	The surviving co-owner cannot sell the dead owner’s share. Both halves have to arrive at the same closing.
Sole owner, and the will or the grant is being fought over	A certified copy of an order under section 103 or 132, under the new section 266.1	A court-appointed administrator can be put in place while the fight runs. Needs a lawyer and a court application.

Why probate takes months, and the one place the clock can move

The slow part is not the paperwork. It is a deliberate waiting period built into the Supreme Court Civil Rules, Part 25.

Before applying, the person seeking the grant must deliver notice to the beneficiaries and to anyone who would inherit on an intestacy. Rule 25-2(2.1) then says a person “may not make an application referred to in subrule (1) until at least 21 days after the date on which the person delivers the notice and other applicable materials referred to in subrule (1.1)”. Twenty-one days before the application is even filed, and the clock runs from the notice and the supporting materials, not from the notice alone.

The probate fee also has to be paid before anything issues. Section 2(1) of the Probate Fee Act requires the fee to be paid “before the issue of any grant or before any resealing”. No fee is payable if the value of the estate does not exceed $25,000. Above that, it is $6 for every $1,000 or part of $1,000 between $25,000 and $50,000, and $14 for every $1,000 or part of $1,000 above $50,000. An estate that is rich in house and poor in cash is a slow estate, because somebody has to find that money first.

Now the part that is usually got wrong. There is no emergency probate in BC. I read the whole of Part 25 of the Supreme Court Civil Rules: the words urgent, emergency, interim, expedite and ad colligenda bona do not appear anywhere in it. Rule 25-14, the rule that lists the applications you can bring in an estate proceeding, has no entry for an urgent grant either.

Two qualifications, both real. The definition of “estate grant” in Rule 25-1 does contemplate a grant “whether the grant is made for general, special or limited purposes”, so limited grants are a thing the Rules know about — there is simply no express procedure for getting one quickly. And Rule 22-4(2) gives the court a general power to “extend or shorten any period of time provided for in these Supreme Court Civil Rules”, with no carve-out for Part 25. Separately, Rule 25-2(14) lets the court vary who must be served, or dispense with service on people other than the Public Guardian and Trustee, which can shorten the practical wait at the front end.

That is as far as the law goes. The regulator’s own position is bleaker. In its published clause material for estate sales, BC Financial Services Authority writes that “The process for obtaining the Grant may be lengthy and cannot be expedited even with a pending sale.”

How long, then? Nobody official will say. I could find no published service standard, registry notice or practice direction giving a processing time for a BC grant of probate, and the Province’s own Wills and estates page gives none. Every figure circulating online traces back to a law firm or a commercial probate service. Treat any number you are quoted as an estimate from the person quoting it, not as a government timeline.

Period	What it governs	Where it comes from
21 days	The wait after delivering notice, before the probate application can be made	Supreme Court Civil Rules, Rule 25-2(2.1)
14 days	The time a named executor has to answer a citation demanding they act	Supreme Court Civil Rules, Rule 25-11(4)
6 months	The outer limit for a cited executor to obtain probate before being deemed to have renounced	Supreme Court Civil Rules, Rule 25-11(5)
180 days	The bar on a representative disposing of the spousal home, running from the grant	Wills, Estates and Succession Act, section 28
210 days	The bar on distributing the estate, running from the grant	Wills, Estates and Succession Act, section 155
3 business days	The home buyer rescission period, running from the date the acceptance was signed	Property Law Act section 42 and B.C. Reg. 175/2022

The 210-day figure deserves a note, because it frightens buyers who hear it second-hand. Section 155(1) says a personal representative “must not distribute the estate of the deceased person within the 210 days following the date of the issue of a representation grant except by order of the court”. That is about handing money and property to the beneficiaries. It is not a bar on selling, and it should not be quoted at you as a reason your purchase has to wait out 210 days.

If an attorney signed for the seller, their authority ended at the moment of death

This is the trap. If the seller was elderly or unwell, there is a fair chance the contract was signed not by them but by an attorney under an enduring power of attorney. That arrangement ends the instant the seller dies, and the Power of Attorney Act spells out the chain.

Section 30(4) lists what terminates an enduring power of attorney, and paragraph (b) is “if the adult who made the enduring power of attorney dies”. Section 29(2)(a) then says the attorney’s authority ends “if the enduring power of attorney is terminated”. From that moment the attorney cannot sign a transfer, cannot sign a deposit release, and cannot agree to an extension. Anyone still taking instructions from them is dealing with someone who has no authority to give any.

The reassuring half is section 29(7): “Anything lawfully done by an attorney on behalf of the adult, including making an agreement, remains binding on the adult after the authority of the attorney ends.” The contract the attorney signed before the death is not undone by the death. Note the exact words, though — the subsection says the adult, not the adult’s estate. It preserves the agreement; the enforcement route against the estate is the one set out earlier in this article.

Now the detail that catches people, and I have not seen it written anywhere for buyers. Part 1 of the same Act has a protective rule for ordinary agency. Section 4(1) says that where an agent’s authority has ended and a person “who has no knowledge of the termination purports to deal with the principal through the agent”, the transaction is deemed, in that person’s favour, to be as valid as if the authority had existed. That sounds like exactly the protection a buyer would want.

It does not apply. Section 2(0.1) of the Act says in one line: “This Part does not apply to an enduring power of attorney under Part 2.” Most powers of attorney used in BC property deals are enduring ones. So the innocent-third-party protection in section 4 is not available in the ordinary case, and a buyer who relies on it will be relying on a section that was switched off before it reached them.

The Act’s definitions sharpen the point further. In Part 1, “knowledge” includes “knowledge of circumstances that would put a reasonable person on inquiry”, and section 2(2) deems a person who knows about the terminating event to know about the termination. Once you have heard the seller has died, you are fixed with knowing the attorney’s authority is gone, whatever anyone tells you.

Document	Who can sign it before a grant issues	Who can sign it after
An extension or amendment to the contract	A surviving joint tenant, for their own interest. Otherwise nobody with certainty.	The registered personal representative
The Form A transfer	Nobody, where the deceased was sole owner	The personal representative, once registered as owner
A release of the deposit	Nobody on the seller’s side	The personal representative, in writing, together with you
Anything at all, by the seller’s attorney under a power of attorney	Nothing. The authority ended at death.	Nothing. The authority does not come back.

Your deposit is frozen, and nobody at the brokerage can release it

Buyers assume that if the deal cannot complete, the deposit comes back. It does not work that way in BC, and the death of the seller makes the lock tighter rather than looser.

Section 28 of the Real Estate Services Act says that where a brokerage holds the money in a trust account, “despite any rule of law to the contrary”, it holds that money “as a stakeholder and not as agent for one of the parties”. Section 30(2) then sets out the only ways stakeholder money leaves: as provided in subsection (1)(a) to (f), in accordance with a written agreement of the parties, or in accordance with the regulations.

Look at what subsection (2) leaves out. Subsection (1)(g) allows money to be paid “to or in accordance with the instructions of the principal to whose credit the money was deposited” — and subsection (2) imports only paragraphs (a) to (f). The one route that would let somebody simply instruct the brokerage to pay the deposit out is the one route deliberately excluded for a deposit.

So you need the seller’s written agreement, and the seller is dead. There is a provision written for exactly this. Section 33(1) lets the brokerage apply to the Supreme Court for an order paying the money into court where “there are adverse claimants”, where “the identity of one or more of the persons entitled to it is unknown”, or where “there is no person capable of giving, or authorized to give, a valid discharge for it”. That third limb describes a dead seller with no appointed representative, word for word.

Two practical details inside that section. The application “may be made without notice to any other person unless otherwise ordered by the court”, and payment into court under the order “discharges the brokerage from liability for the amount paid”. It is also permissive: the brokerage may apply. It is not required to, and in practice most will wait for a representative to be appointed who can sign a release with you.

Route out of the trust account	Available when the seller has died?
Written agreement of both parties	Not until a personal representative is appointed and registered, because nobody else can sign for the seller’s side
A court order	Yes, but it means a Supreme Court application
Payment into court by the brokerage, under section 33	Yes. The dead-seller case fits section 33(1)(c) on its face. The brokerage may apply; it does not have to
Instructions of the party who paid it in, under section 30(1)(g)	No. Subsection (2) imports only paragraphs (a) to (f) for stakeholder money
Under the rescission regulation	Only within the 3 business days after acceptance was signed, which will long since have passed

The completion date, and the extension you will need

A fixed completion date and a probate application do not fit together. The date will almost certainly have to move, and the question is how.

The cleanest answer is the one the regulator itself drafted for estate sales. BC Financial Services Authority publishes a completion-date clause tying the date to the estate condition rather than to the calendar. It makes the completion date “the later of” a date the parties insert and “5 business days following the date on which the Estate Condition is declared fulfilled or waived by both the Buyer and the Seller”. Its estate condition itself is drafted so that it “cannot be unilaterally waived by either of them”. Those clauses sit in the BC Financial Services Authority clauses library, which carries no publication date — it says only that its content is updated regularly.

Those clauses are written for a sale where the owner was already dead when the contract was made. The mechanics are the same ones you have been dropped into, so the formula transfers: stop promising a date, and start promising a number of days after the grant and the transmission are done.

Whether “time is of the essence” bites against an estate that physically cannot close is a question for your lawyer, not for an article. What is worth knowing is that BC has a statutory instruction on the point. Section 31 of the Law and Equity Act says stipulations as to time that are not of the essence according to the rules of equity “must receive the same construction and effect as they would receive in equity”. Get advice before you treat a missed date as the end of anything.

The spousal home trap that catches married sellers

If the seller was married or in a marriage-like relationship and the home was where they both lived, there is a provision almost nobody outside estate practice knows about, and it can hold the property for six months after the grant.

Section 28 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act says a personal representative “must not, without the written consent of the surviving spouse, dispose of the spousal home during the 180 days after the date on which the representation grant is issued”, or for any extended period, unless the other assets are not enough to pay the estate’s debts and a mortgage on the home would not raise enough either.

Three things about it are routinely misreported. The 180 days run from the issue of the grant, not from the death, so the clock starts late. The bar is not absolute: the surviving spouse’s written consent lifts it, and so does the insufficient-assets proviso. And it only engages at all where the estate is intestate, or where the spousal home “is not the subject of a gift or otherwise disposed of by a will” — so a will that leaves the house to someone takes the whole thing out of play.

Here is the honest part. Section 28 bars the representative from “disposing of” the home. Nothing in the Act defines that phrase, and nothing in it says whether completing a sale the deceased had already contracted to make counts as a disposal by the representative or as performance of the dead person’s own obligation. I could find no provision that settles it. If this is your situation, that unresolved question is the first thing to put in front of a lawyer, and the surviving spouse’s written consent is the cheapest way around it.

Can the estate back out, or come back asking for more?

You will hear that an executor has to get the best price for the beneficiaries, and that they can therefore re-trade your deal. Be careful with that, because the statute is narrower than the folklore.

Section 5 of the Trustee Act contains a real power to walk away: a trustee may vary a contract for sale, “or to rescind any contract for sale and to resell, without being answerable for any loss”. But read the opening words. The whole subsection begins “If a trust for sale or a power of sale of property is vested in a trustee”. It is conditional. It also yields to a contrary intention in the will, and by section 5(3) it applies “only to a trust or power created by an instrument coming into operation after July 1, 1905” — which is hard to satisfy on an intestacy, where there is no instrument at all.

Nor does the Trustee Act arrive wholesale. Section 143(1) of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act applies only three of its sections to a personal representative: section 86 (application for directions), section 89 (remuneration) and section 96 (relief from breach of trust). Section 143(2) adds section 40. Section 5 is not on that list. Section 72, the duty to convey, does not need the list, because it names “the executor, administrator or administrator with the will annexed” itself.

What the representative is far more likely to do is go to court for cover. Section 86 lets “a trustee, executor or administrator” apply by petition for “the opinion, advice or direction of the court on a question respecting the management or administration of the trust property or the assets of a will-maker or intestate”. If the beneficiaries are unhappy about your price, that is the route, and it adds weeks rather than ending the deal.

Two more things an executor’s own position is built on. Section 142(1) gives a personal representative “the same authority over the estate … as the deceased person would have if living”, subject to a contrary intention in the will and to any other enactment. Section 142(2) then makes it a duty, not a choice: the representative “must exercise authority to” administer and distribute the estate, account to beneficiaries and creditors, and perform the other duties the will or the law imposes.

Can you protect your place in line on title?

If the estate goes quiet, or starts talking to another buyer, the question becomes whether you can put something on title. The instrument is a certificate of pending litigation, and it is not a casual step.

Section 215(1) of the Land Title Act lets “a person who has commenced or is a party to a proceeding” and who is “claiming an estate or interest in land” register a certificate against the land in the same way a charge is registered. A buyer suing for specific performance is claiming an interest in land, so on the plain words that fits — but the section does not say so in terms, and whether you qualify is a question for a lawyer on your facts, not a given.

The effect is blunt. Section 216(1) says that after registration the registrar “must not make any entry in the register that has the effect of charging, transferring or otherwise affecting the land described in the certificate” until the certificate is cancelled. It freezes the title against everyone, which is the point, and it also freezes the estate’s ability to sell to anybody — including, if you later settle, to you. Starting a lawsuit to force a sale is a serious decision with costs attached, and it is one to take with advice.

There is a gentler lever if the problem is simply an executor who will not get on with it. Rule 25-11 of the Supreme Court Civil Rules lets “a person interested in the estate” serve a citation in Form P32 on a named executor, requiring them to apply for probate. The executor then has 14 days to answer. If they do not act, they can be deemed to have renounced if they fail to “obtain a grant of probate within 6 months after the date on which the citation was served”, although the court can allow a longer period on the executor’s application, and the renunciation is not automatic — somebody then has to apply. Rule 25-14(1)(f) separately allows an application for “passing over an executor”.

The catch is the gateway phrase. “Person interested in the estate” is not defined in Rule 25-1, which defines nineteen other terms, and I could find no definition of it in the Wills, Estates and Succession Act either. Whether a buyer under an unperformed contract is such a person is genuinely unsettled on the face of the rules. Do not assume you can use this without advice.

What BC law does not say

Printing the gaps is more useful than pretending they are not there, and in this topic the gaps are large.

Nothing in BC statute allocates the risk of loss between acceptance and completion, and nothing obliges either party to keep the property insured in that window. I read the Property Law Act and the Law and Equity Act looking for it. The words risk and destroyed do not appear in either in that sense; the only insurance provisions in the Law and Equity Act are about mortgage covenants. Who carries the risk is whatever your contract says it is.

One statute does reach across a death, and it is worth telling your own insurer about. Section 29 of the Insurance Act deems a set of statutory conditions to be part of every contract of insurance. Statutory Condition 3, headed “Change of interest”, reads: “The insurer is liable for loss or damage occurring after an authorized assignment under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act (Canada) or a change of title by succession, by operation of law or by death.” It does not divide risk between you and the estate. It does mean a change of title by death is not, by itself, the thing that voids cover.

The home buyer rescission period is silent on all of this. The words death, dies and deceased appear nowhere in B.C. Reg. 175/2022 and nowhere in the Property Law Act. The right runs for 3 business days from the date the acceptance of the offer was signed, and nothing restarts it. It will be long gone by the time a seller dies mid-deal, so it is not an exit.

And the regulators are quiet. BC Financial Services Authority publishes one estate clause and a short practice resource on buying from an estate, but I could find no page of its guidance that addresses a seller or a buyer dying after a contract is in place. I could find no column in the real estate industry’s own legal commentary on it either, and no decision of the Civil Resolution Tribunal that I could reach. That is “I could find none”, not “there are none” — their search tools are not fully reachable from here.

Question buyers ask	What the law actually says
Who carries the risk if the house burns down before completion?	No BC statute says. It is whatever the contract says.
Does the seller have to keep insuring it?	No statute requires it. No published regulator clause requires it either.
Does a death void the insurance?	Insurance Act section 29, Statutory Condition 3, keeps the insurer liable for loss after a change of title by death.
Do I get a fresh rescission period?	No. The 3 business days run from the date the acceptance was signed, and death is not mentioned anywhere in the scheme.
How long will probate take?	No government timeline is published. The regulator says the grant cannot be expedited because a sale is pending.
Can I force the executor to get on with it?	Possibly, by citation under Rule 25-11, but “person interested in the estate” is undefined.

What to do in the first week

• Tell your conveyancing lawyer or notary the day you hear. This stops being a real estate question and becomes a legal one immediately.
• Pull the title and read the ownership line. Joint tenancy or sole ownership changes everything that follows.
• Find out who signed the contract on the seller’s side. If it was an attorney under a power of attorney, that authority is gone.
• Ask your own lender to put the mortgage commitment on hold rather than letting it lapse quietly. Rate holds and approvals expire on their own schedule.
• Do not demand the deposit back. Nobody can give it to you, and a demand on the record can complicate the release later.
• Ask, in writing, who is applying for the grant and when notice under Rule 25-2 will go out. The 21 days start from that delivery.
• Have your lawyer draft a floating completion date keyed to the grant and the transmission, rather than agreeing to another fixed date you will have to move again.
• If the seller was married and lived there, raise section 28 and the surviving spouse’s written consent early.
• Be careful and kind in how you communicate. The person on the other side is usually a family member who has just had a death, and who is about to learn how slow this is.

Questions buyers ask

Is my contract cancelled?

No. Section 150 of the Wills, Estates and Succession Act says a cause of action is not annulled by reason only of the death, and section 72 of the Trustee Act puts a duty on the executor or administrator to give the conveyance where the gateway in that section is met.

Can I just walk away and get my deposit back?

Walking away and getting the deposit back are two different things. The brokerage holds it as a stakeholder, and it comes out only on a written agreement of both parties, a court order, or payment into court. Until someone has authority to sign for the seller’s side, there is nobody to agree with.

The seller’s son says he is the executor and wants to sign. Can he?

Being named in a will is not the same as holding a grant. For a sole owner, nothing registers at the land title office until the grant issues and the representative is registered as the owner. Ask to see the certified copy of the grant, and ask the conveyancer to confirm the transmission has reached final registration.

The seller owned the home with a spouse. Is this faster?

Usually, yes — but only if they held as joint tenants rather than as tenants in common. Joint tenancy means a death certificate is enough under section 269 of the Land Title Act. Tenancy in common means the dead owner’s share still has to go through the estate.

Can we close faster by going to court?

There is no emergency probate. The court does have a general power under Rule 22-4(2) to shorten any period in the Supreme Court Civil Rules, and under Rule 25-2(14) it can vary or dispense with who must be served. Whether either is worth the application is a question for counsel.

What if the estate tries to sell it to someone else?

Then you are in a dispute, and the tool is a lawsuit with a certificate of pending litigation registered against the title under section 215 of the Land Title Act. It freezes dealings with the land under section 216(1). It is a serious, expensive step and it needs advice first.

Who to call

Your conveyancing lawyer or notary is the first call, the same day. This is not a situation to manage through a real estate professional alone, and I will say so to any client in it.

A grant of probate can be applied for at any BC Supreme Court registry. In the Lower Mainland, the Vancouver registry is at the Law Courts, 800 Smithe Street, Vancouver, B.C. V6Z 2E1, telephone 604-660-2847, listed on the Province’s courthouse locations page. The Province’s own Wills and estates pages are the plain-language starting point for the family on the other side.

Land title filings and their current fees are published by the Land Title and Survey Authority fee listing. The estate route is two registrations rather than one, which is why the fees below appear twice over in an estate file.

Land title office item	Fee
Title search	$11.06
Register an indefeasible title — the transmission to the representative, and again the transfer to you	$83.82 each
Filing a transparency declaration	$10.61

Fees are those published in the Land Title and Survey Authority customer fee listing as at 1 April 2026. Confirm current amounts before you budget.

Read next

• Buying a house from an estate in BC — the version of this where the owner died before the home was listed.
• Buying a BC home when someone else signs for the seller — powers of attorney, representation agreements and committees.
• What happens to your deposit if a BC home deal falls apart.
• From accepted offer to completion day in BC — what the normal timeline looks like.
• Lawyer or notary for a BC home purchase — who you want in your corner here.
• All North Shore buying and selling guides.

این مقاله به فارسی — read this article in Farsi.

General information only, not advice on a specific property or a specific estate. Every figure, section number and quotation above was checked against the primary source and checked again in a separate pass. Statutes, rules and fees change, and the “current to” date on a consolidation moves: the BC statutes and regulations cited here were read current to 27 October 2026, the Supreme Court Civil Rules current to 29 September 2026, and the land title fees as published as at 1 April 2026. Confirm anything that matters with the authority that owns it, and take legal advice from a BC lawyer or notary before you act. Verified 28 October 2026. Last reviewed October 2026.

Written by Tom Jahed, licensed REALTOR®, Vanak Realty, North Vancouver.