A buyer who had signed with another brokerage

The situation

A Kitchener-area buyer signed a Buyer Representation Agreement with Brokerage A: a designated-representation form, four months to expiry, naming the agent and covering “the City of Kitchener and immediately adjoining municipalities.” Under Ontario’s TRESA rules, a representation agreement “must be put in writing and presented to you as soon as possible,” and it has to state what the buyer will pay their brokerage, or how that amount will be calculated, for the services and representation received. This one did: 2.5% of the purchase price, payable through the seller’s offered cooperating commission, with the buyer responsible for any shortfall.

The problem

Two months into the agreement, the buyer attended an open house hosted by a Brokerage B agent, inside the same named scope, and wrote an offer through that agent instead. Neither brokerage knew about the other — the buyer never disclosed the existing Brokerage A agreement, and Brokerage B had no way to check for one before writing the offer. The purchase closed on a $612,000 property. Brokerage A found out only when the sale appeared on MLS as closed, well inside both the agreement’s four-month term and its named geographic scope.

The numbers

The agreement’s own fee clause set the number, not a market rate or an industry guess: 2.5% of a $612,000 purchase price is $15,300. That is what Brokerage A billed. Ontario has no legislated or regulator-set commission rate at all — the figure came from the contract the buyer signed, and nowhere else. Ontario’s standard-form Buyer Representation Agreement is OREA Form 300; its cancellation counterpart is Form 301. Neither had been signed here — the agreement was simply left to run, which is exactly why it was still in force when the second offer closed.

The rule that decided it

This was never a TRESA complaint against the buyer — TRESA regulates registrants, not consumers, and a buyer choosing to work with a second brokerage is not itself a licensing violation for anyone. What controlled was ordinary contract law. Treadstone Law’s guide to Ontario breach of contract puts the underlying rule plainly: “A breach occurs when one party fails to perform a contractual obligation without a lawful excuse.” The buyer had signed a written, exclusive agreement stating a fee for representation and services; buying through a different, unrelated brokerage inside that agreement’s stated scope and term was exactly the obligation the buyer failed to perform.

What it would have cost otherwise

If Brokerage A’s agreement had been the kind that names no fee amount or calculation — which TRESA permits agents to get wrong, since RECO does not template this clause for brokerages — there would have been no number to claim and no contract term to point to. The primary remedy for a proven breach is compensatory damages — “money to put you in the position you would have been in had the contract been performed” — and that measure only exists because the agreement had already fixed what performance was worth. A brokerage that lets its buyer-side fee clause default to something vague is not being buyer-friendly; it is giving up its only lever if a signed client simply walks to a competitor mid-term.

The tell

The buyer had been an active, weekly presence at showings for six weeks, then went quiet for the final two weeks before the Brokerage B offer — no calls returned, one text saying they were “taking a break to think.” A sudden silence from a pre-approved, actively house-hunting client inside an exclusive agreement’s term is not proof of anything on its own, but it is exactly the moment to send a plain check-in referencing the agreement’s scope and expiry date — a paper trail that would have mattered whether or not the buyer answered.

The outcome

Brokerage A’s broker of record sent a demand letter itemising the agreement’s fee clause, the scope, the term, and the closed sale. The buyer’s lawyer did not dispute that the agreement existed or that the property fell inside its scope; the negotiation was purely about avoiding a court filing. The parties settled at $9,945 — about 65% of the $15,300 the clause supported — reflecting the cost and delay of litigating a claim of that size rather than any weakness in the contract itself.

Takeaways

• • A written representation agreement is a contract like any other — its scope, term and fee clause are what a breach claim is measured against, not what “usually” happens in the market.
• • TRESA governs registrants; it has no mechanism to police a buyer who works with two brokerages. Your recourse against the buyer, if any, runs through ordinary contract law, not a RECO complaint.
• • A representation agreement with no stated fee or calculation method leaves nothing to claim if it is breached — check that clause on every agreement you sign, not just the expiry date.
• • A client who goes suddenly quiet mid-search, inside an active exclusive agreement, is worth a documented check-in referencing the agreement — not because it proves anything, but because it creates a record either way.