Who you work with, and how to check they are licensed

A first purchase in Ontario involves at least four licensed professionals, each answering to a different regulator, and each licensed to do things the others are not. Knowing which is which matters more for a newcomer than for anyone else, because the questions that are specific to your situation — status, timing, tax — sit outside what a real estate professional is permitted to answer.

Every one of these regulators publishes a way to check that a person is licensed and in good standing. Use them. They take a minute each.

The real estate professional

In Ontario, the Government of Ontario states that "real estate salespersons, brokers and brokerages are regulated under the Trust in Real Estate Services Act, 2002 and must be registered with the Real Estate Council of Ontario (RECO)." Registrants have met RECO's educational standards, follow a code of ethics, and must carry deposit insurance protecting consumers up to $200,000 per claim.

The province's advice is direct: "confirm that they are registered by using RECO's registrant search."

There is a second thing you are entitled to. RECO publishes a document called the RECO Information Guide, and it "must be given to a buyer or seller before services or assistance are provided." It sets out what the different working relationships mean and what your rights are. If nobody has handed it to you and started explaining it, that is a signal in itself.

Why you will be asked for identification

Expect to be asked for government-issued photo identification early, and expect it to be recorded rather than glanced at.

This is a federal obligation, not a preference. FINTRAC — the federal anti-money-laundering agency — states: "If you are a real estate broker or sales representative, you must verify client identity when you act as an agent or mandatary in the purchase or sale of real estate." Records have to be kept and made available to FINTRAC on request.

It is worth saying plainly because it can read as suspicion directed at a newcomer, and it is not: every buyer and seller in the country goes through it. The same logic sits behind the questions about where your down payment came from.

The lawyer

IRCC's own homebuying page puts this in one sentence: "If your offer of purchase is accepted, you need to hire a lawyer or notary to transfer the home to your name." In Ontario that is a lawyer.

For a newcomer the lawyer is doing more than the conveyance. Almost every question on the other pages of this hub ends at a lawyer's desk:

• whether the federal prohibition on purchases by non-Canadians applies to you, and whether an exception does;
• whether the Non-Resident Speculation Tax applies, whether an exemption is available, and how a purchase would need to be structured to use one;
• what to do about the first-time buyer refund if you expect your status to change.

Engage one before you write an offer, not after one is accepted. By the time an offer is firm, the answers have stopped being choices.

You can check that a lawyer is a member in good standing through the Law Society of Ontario.

The mortgage professional

Mortgage brokerages, brokers and agents in Ontario are licensed under the Mortgage Brokerages, Lenders and Administrators Act, 2006 and regulated by the Financial Services Regulatory Authority of Ontario (FSRA), which publishes a public register of licensees.

A licensed mortgage professional is the right person for the questions raised in mortgages when your credit history is in another country — what documentation a particular lender will accept in place of a Canadian credit file, and what you actually qualify for once the qualifying rate is applied. A real estate professional is not licensed to arrange a mortgage or to tell you what you can borrow.

The immigration representative

This one carries the most risk, and it is the reason this page exists as a separate page.

If you pay someone to represent you on an immigration or citizenship application, IRCC requires them to be authorized. The categories are specific:

• immigration or citizenship consultants must be a member of the College of Immigration and Citizenship Consultants;
• lawyers or notaries must be a member of a Canadian provincial or territorial law society, or the Chambre des notaires du Québec;
• paralegals — Ontario only — must be members of the Law Society of Ontario.

IRCC's instruction is unambiguous: "If they are not members in good standing, you should not use their services." Most law societies allow you to check membership online, and IRCC links each of them from the page cited below.

An unpaid representative — a friend, a family member, someone from a community organization — does not need to be licensed. The moment money or any other compensation changes hands, they do.

Nobody at a real estate brokerage, including a REALTOR®, is an authorized immigration representative by virtue of that role. If someone offers to handle both your home purchase and your immigration file, check the second one against the College's register before you agree to anything.

What a REALTOR® is not licensed to do

To be explicit about the boundary, because the whole point of this hub is to be useful without crossing it. A real estate professional in Ontario is registered to trade in real estate. That does not extend to:

• immigration advice — including whether an exception under the federal prohibition applies to your permit, or what a purchase might mean for a future application;
• legal advice — including how to structure title, or what an exemption requires;
• tax advice — including the speculation tax, the first-time buyer refund, or the tax treatment of a property you still own in another country;
• telling you what you can borrow — that is the licensed mortgage professional's role.

What is genuinely inside the role: knowing this market, telling you what is available and what it is being asked for, being straight about what a house needs, negotiating, and getting you to the right professional early enough for their answer to still be useful.

The general purchase process, which is the same regardless of status, is in the buyers' guide. Current asking prices and inventory by municipality are on the community pages, and the market notes explain what those numbers do and do not mean.