Where a deal includes the building, not just the business inside it, the land registry is a separate search from anything a PPSA or corporate-registry check will surface, and it is indexed by the property, not by the seller’s name.
Key takeaways
SECTION 01 OF 04
Ontario’s Land Titles Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. L.5, s.141(2) requires the Director of Titles to “divide into blocks and properties any land… and assign property identifiers to those properties” — the number known on the ground as the PIN. Subsection (5) then requires the land registrar to “create and maintain an index in automated form known as the parcel register and enter every instrument that affects a property in the parcel register under the property identifier assigned to that property.”
That is the whole architecture: a search does not start from the seller’s name, or even the municipal address — it starts from the PIN, and every registered instrument affecting that parcel since automation is indexed under it. A search run against the wrong PIN, or against a legal description that has since been consolidated or severed, will not find instruments registered against the parcel the deal actually concerns.
SECTION 02 OF 04
Section 140(2) is a short, easy-to-miss line: “The description of registered land is not conclusive as to the boundaries or extent of the land.” A parcel register that lists no competing instruments is proof of what has been registered against that PIN — it is not a survey, and it is not proof the land being sold is exactly the land described. Boundary questions, encroachments and easements that predate automation are a different diligence question from anything the register itself resolves.
SECTION 03 OF 04
British Columbia’s Land Title Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 250, runs its own Torrens-style registry under its own definitions — a “duplicate indefeasible title” there means “a certificate issued under section 176 (1)”, and the system is administered by the “chief executive officer… of the Land Title and Survey Authority”, a different body under a different Act from Ontario’s Director of Titles. Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba and the Maritime provinces each run comparable but separately-administered systems again. There is no cross-Canada title search any more than there is a cross-Canada PPSA search — the province has to be named before the registry can be searched.
SECTION 04 OF 04
A title search answers a question about the land. It says nothing about a PPSA financing statement registered over equipment inside a building on that land, and — see personal property or fixture: the gap between the PPSA registry and the land registry — a fixtures notice under the PPSA is itself only ever registered against title voluntarily. Where the deal separates the real estate from the operating business, see also buying real estate alongside the operating business, keeping the building: what a pre-closing carve-out actually costs, and land transfer tax when the deal includes the building for what a title search does not tell you about tax. Treadstone Law’s note on Ontario’s electronic land registration and its companion on land titles versus the older registry system cover the practical mechanics of running the search itself.
No. The land registry is a separate search indexed by the property identifier, or PIN, not by the seller’s name, and it says nothing about a PPSA financing statement or other lien registered over equipment inside the building.
No. The Land Titles Act itself states that the description of registered land is not conclusive as to its boundaries or extent. A parcel register listing no competing instruments proves what has been registered against that PIN — it is not a survey, and boundary questions, encroachments and easements that predate automation are a different diligence question entirely.
No. Each province runs its own separately-administered land registry under its own Act — British Columbia’s Land Title Act is a different system from Ontario’s, administered by a different body. There is no cross-Canada title search, just as there is no cross-Canada PPSA search.
Sources
Canadian small-business transaction data is not published anywhere, so most valuations in this country quote an American benchmark. The Deavo–Treadstone Acquisition Index is a daily record of Canadian listings built to replace that: asking-price distributions by province and city are published now, and days on market, departure rates and asking-to-sale spreads follow as the series lengthens. Leave an email and we will tell you as each measure lands.
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