A phone number on a for-sale-by-owner sign looks like an open invitation. Federal telemarketing rules say otherwise — and the moment you offer a home-value opinion to get the conversation started, a second, separate rule can quietly turn that prospect into a client you didn’t mean to take on.
Key takeaways
The CRTC’s own sector-specific guidance for real estate corrects the single most common mistake directly: a person sharing their phone number on a website to sell their house does not constitute valid consent on their part to receive calls from a real estate agent. A number on a yard sign, a Kijiji post, or a Facebook Marketplace listing is published so a buyer can reach the seller about that property — not an invitation for a prospecting call about representation. The same principle applies wherever the number was published; nothing in the guidance narrows it to any one listing platform.
Compliance here runs through the brokerage, not the individual agent’s own account. The CRTC states that registration and subscription to the National Do Not Call List is done at the brokerage level and not at the parent company or agent level, and lists what an agent making their own calls must actually do: register with the National Do Not Call List, maintain an internal do-not-call list, purchase a subscription to every area code you intend to call, download the subscribed numbers every 31 days, and scrub your call list against the National list, your personal list, and your internal list before calling. A FSBO number that was clean last month isn’t necessarily clean this month — the 31-day refresh cycle exists precisely because DNCL registrations change.
Ontario abolished the “customer” category entirely under TRESA. RECO’s bulletin states it without qualification: “There is no equivalent to a customer or a customer agreement under TRESA.” A companion bulletin lists the specific conduct that creates an implied representation agreement even with no signature involved — and names, directly relevant to a FSBO approach, “advising potential sellers what their home may be worth or soliciting confidential information from a consumer about their motivation to buy or sell a property.” The classic FSBO opening — offering a free, unsolicited value opinion to start a conversation — is exactly the conduct that bulletin names. It can create a representation relationship, with the fiduciary duties that come with it, before either side meant to enter one. The safer approach routes a genuine market-value conversation through a signed representation agreement first, or keeps the initial outreach to a clearly non-advisory, general offer of services rather than a personalized opinion on that specific property.
Not every outreach channel carries the same compliance load. Postal mail governed by no federal telemarketing consent regime at all — CASL applies only to electronic messages, and the National DNCL governs telecommunications, not physical mail. A well-crafted letter or flyer avoids both regimes' consent requirements, though it still has to meet RECO's advertising and identification rules like any other marketing material. An in-person approach — a knock at the door — likewise sits outside the CRTC's telecommunications rules and CASL's electronic-message rules, though other legal or municipal considerations can still apply to in-person solicitation and aren't addressed by either federal source here.
Checking the National DNCL isn’t the whole obligation. The CRTC’s real estate guidance requires the brokerage to also maintain its own internal, brokerage-wide do-not-call list and honour any removal request against it — a FSBO seller who tells one agent at the brokerage not to call back has, in effect, opted the brokerage as a whole out of calling that number again, not just that individual agent. A prospecting workflow that scrubs against the National DNCL but never checks the brokerage’s own internal list is only doing half of what the guidance requires.
A direct read of the CRTC’s sector-specific real estate guidance page turns up no mention of any exemption unique to real estate — the general existing-business-relationship windows in the Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules are what apply, the same as for any other industry: a purchase within the preceding eighteen months, or an inquiry within the preceding six months. A FSBO seller who has never done business with you and never inquired doesn’t fall into either window, which is exactly why the published-number-isn’t-consent rule above matters so much for this specific prospecting channel.
If you use a lead-generation vendor for FSBO calling
The liability doesn’t transfer. The CRTC states that the brokerage is liable for the actions of its agents and any lead generators used by its agents and that a vendor’s own promise of compliance doesn’t protect the brokerage if that promise turns out to be wrong. See after-hours coverage for a solo agent for the same liability rule applied to automated response systems.
The Telecommunications Act attaches a specific number to a National DNCL breach: a violation carries “in the case of an individual, to an administrative monetary penalty of up to $1,500”, or “in the case of a corporation, to an administrative monetary penalty of up to $15,000” — per violation, not per campaign.
No — the CRTC’s guidance states the principle generally: publishing a number to sell the property isn’t consent to be called by an agent, regardless of which platform it was published on.
A direct read of the CRTC’s own real estate guidance and the general Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules turns up no sector-specific exemption — only the general existing-business-relationship windows apply, the same as for any other industry.
A cold text to someone with no prior relationship or inquiry has no obvious implied-consent basis under CASL, which governs electronic messages including texts. Without an inquiry, referral, or existing relationship inside CASL’s windows, that would generally need express consent first, the same as a cold marketing email would.
The National DNCL entry a consumer registers themselves has its own renewal cycle, but a brokerage’s own internal do-not-call list is a separate record the brokerage maintains directly; nothing in the CRTC's guidance suggests an internal opt-out expires on its own.
A short call can help you build a prospecting process that respects both the DNCL and TRESA.
