Do I actually need a real estate lawyer in Ontario, and what do they do?

Registering a transfer of title through Teraview, Ontario's electronic land registration system, requires compliance-with-law statements that only a lawyer licensed by the Law Society of Ontario can make, whether you're paying cash or using a mortgage. Mortgage lenders also require a lawyer to act on the mortgage. Under the Law Society's rules, buyer and seller generally need separate lawyers, with only narrow exceptions.

• Title search: confirms the seller actually owns the property and checks for liens, easements, or old undischarged mortgages registered against it.
• Mortgage instructions: follows your lender's requirements exactly before releasing funds.
• Tax and utility certificates: confirms property taxes and utilities are paid up, so you don't inherit the seller's debts.
• Statement of adjustments: the final accounting of who owes what, like prepaid property taxes.
• Closing: wires funds, registers the transfer, and coordinates key release.

Requests a mortgage payout statement from your lender, prepares the deed and closing documents, clears anything registered against the property that needs to be discharged, and sends you the balance of your proceeds once registration is confirmed. See our selling a home page for more detail.

Before, if you can. A lawyer can flag a problem clause or a condition deadline before it costs you something. If you've already signed, call right away rather than waiting, especially if a financing or inspection condition is still running. Most of a lawyer's work happens in the two to three weeks before closing, so waiting until closing week limits what can be caught or fixed.

Your agent negotiates the deal and helps with the offer. Your lawyer reviews the legal terms, checks title, handles your money, and registers the transaction. They work together but do different jobs. An agent can't give legal advice on your agreement's wording, and a lawyer generally doesn't get involved in negotiating price.