A pre-emptive, or bully, offer is “an offer submitted before a seller’s scheduled offer presentation date, typically at a premium price and with a short irrevocability window, designed to pressure the seller into accepting before other buyers can compete”; a second source frames it functionally as “a firm, unconditional offer submitted to a seller before their stated offer date”.
It works by exploiting how offer disclosure is structured under TRESA. A buyer who has made an offer is entitled to know only the “number” of competing offers — sellers choose how much other information, if any, they want to share about the offers they receive — so a seller can weigh a bully offer's premium price without other buyers knowing what it actually is.
On receiving one, “listing agents have disclosure obligations that protect the integrity of the process”: the agent must disclose to every registered buyer's agent that a bully offer has been received. The seller is not obliged to accept it, or even review it, but that disclosure requirement stands regardless. Once accepted, it is an ordinary firm deal — “there’s no separate legal category for it”.
Quebec has no equivalent disruption to guard against, because its brokers are never waiting on a stated offer date in the first place. OACIQ guidance requires a listing broker to present every promise to purchase to the seller as soon as possible upon receipt, regardless of the chronological order buyers submitted in, and explicitly warns sellers against the opposite strategy: “you may be tempted to use the strategy of receiving all promises to purchase at the same time, at a given date and time. This goes against the obligation to present every transaction proposal as soon as possible following receipt”. Ontario schedules a date to batch offers together; Quebec's rule pushes the other way.
A Toronto listing sets its offer date for next Thursday at 7 p.m. On Monday, a buyer submits a firm, unconditional offer at a premium price, irrevocable for four hours. The listing agent immediately tells every registered buyer's agent that a competing offer exists, without naming its price. The seller accepts on Monday afternoon; Thursday's offer date is cancelled, and buyers who were preparing for it have no recourse.
See also: irrevocable date and the escalation clause.
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