A dated home is described with adjectives a buyer can weigh for themselves. A small home is usually described with a number — and a number a buyer can check against a tape measure is a different, and stricter, kind of claim than a euphemism.
Key takeaways
Describing a home as “cosy” is an impression; describing it as “1,050 square feet” is a specification. The Competition Act's civil track treats the two differently. Beyond the general prohibition on a representation that is “false or misleading in a material respect,” it separately reaches a representation “in the form of a statement, warranty or guarantee of the performance … of a product … that is not based on an adequate and proper test thereof, the proof of which lies on the person making the representation.” (s.74.01(1)(b)) A square-footage figure is exactly this kind of statement — it reads as measured fact, and the burden sits with whoever published it to show it was based on something real, not with a buyer to disprove it.
Unlike some jurisdictions, no Canadian regulator, board or CREA publishes a mandated measurement method for residential listings — no equivalent, sourced standard was found for this piece across RECO's bulletins, CREA's own materials or the board sources checked. That absence matters more than it might seem: it means the number came from the previous listing or the builder's plan said so is not a defence with a regulatory backstop behind it, because there is no default method that makes any particular number presumptively correct. If you didn't measure it yourself, or arrange for someone qualified to, the number is a claim you're making with someone else's unverified work behind it.
The riskiest square-footage figure is the one nobody actually generated for this listing: a number copied from an old MLS record, a tax-assessment figure that measures something different from livable area, or a builder's original plan figure that predates a renovation that changed the layout. Any of these can be genuinely wrong for the property as it stands today, and republishing one without checking it is how an old, unverified number becomes a fresh false-or-misleading representation the moment your listing goes live — the age of the error doesn't reduce your exposure for repeating it.
None of this means avoiding size altogether. It means being precise about what you're actually claiming. Efficient one-bedroom layout with a dedicated home office nook describes real, checkable features without asserting a number you can't stand behind. If you do publish a figure, say where it came from — “per the builder's plans” or “per a recent measurement” — because a sourced number and an unsourced one are not the same claim under the “adequate and proper test” standard, even if the digits are identical. (s.74.01(1)(b)) And RECO's own comparative-claims discipline is worth applying to a size claim specifically: is it “truthful and supported by verifiable facts,” and has “the basis of the claim … been included to avoid being considered inaccurate”? (RECO Bulletin 5.1) A number with its source attached passes that test in a way a bare number never can.
The size claim doesn't have to be written down to exist. An aggressively wide-angle lens, or a virtually staged render that furnishes a room at a scale it can't actually hold, creates an impression of size the same way a wrong number does — and it is caught by the same general test, because the false-or-misleading prohibition applies to a representation “by any means whatever,” not only to text. (s.52) A photo that makes a small bedroom read as a genuinely spacious one is doing the same work as an inflated square-footage figure, just visually instead of numerically — and it invites the same reaction at the showing, when the buyer's own eyes contradict what the listing photos implied.
A small home's real selling points — a lower carrying cost, an efficient floor plan, proximity to transit, a manageable maintenance load — are all things you can describe honestly without touching the disputed-number problem at all. Room count, storage solutions, and how the space actually functions day to day are checkable in person during a showing, which makes them naturally lower-risk than a single disputed digit that a buyer's own tape measure can contradict before they've even made an offer.
Suppose a listing was last measured for MLS purposes eight years ago at 900 square feet, and the current owner finished part of the basement in the meantime without ever having the whole home re-measured. Republishing the old 900 figure understates what's now livable, which sounds like a harmless error in the buyer's favour — but it is still a representation that no longer reflects the property, and “harmless” isn't a defence under a test that asks whether the representation is accurate, not whether the error helped or hurt the reader. The fix isn't guessing at a corrected number either; it's treating any renovation, addition or basement finish as a trigger to re-measure before the next listing, the same way a status change triggers a fresh look at consent in other parts of the marketing file.
Only if you understand what that figure actually measures, which often differs from livable area and can include or exclude spaces like a finished basement depending on the assessing authority's own method. Using it without checking what it represents risks republishing a number that answers a different question than the one your listing is implicitly asking.
The word softens the claim but doesn't eliminate the underlying representation, and RECO's own framing treats a vague, imprecise statement as potentially inaccurate on its own where clarity was needed — so “approximate” works better paired with a real source for the number than as a stand-alone hedge.
A genuine discrepancy is a normal reason to revisit and correct the published figure promptly, which is a different situation from having published a figure you never verified in the first place — the first is ordinary due diligence working as intended, the second is the exposure this piece is about.
It carries a real administrative monetary penalty: under s.74.1(1)(c) of the Competition Act, a court can order a payment of up to $750,000 for an individual on a first order (rising to $1,000,000 for a subsequent one), or up to $10,000,000 for a corporation (rising to $15,000,000) — or three times the benefit derived from the deceptive conduct, if that amount can be reasonably determined. (s.74.1(1)(c)) That is the exposure sitting behind an unsourced square-footage figure, not merely an awkward correction later.
A quick source check before a listing launches is cheaper than a correction after it's live.
