A consent to sever is “the approval needed under the Planning Act, R.S.O. 1990, c. P.13, to divide one parcel of land into two or more parcels — or to convey a part of a lot — without registering a plan of subdivision.” Two different bodies grant it depending on the municipality, and knowing which one your client is dealing with changes the timeline you should be quoting.
The approving body is a “Committee of Adjustment” in most cities and large towns, and a “Land Division Committee” in upper-tier or single-tier municipalities that have no Committee of Adjustment. It comes up constantly in this cluster: separating a farm lot, carving a second building lot beside an existing house, or transferring an easement or mortgage over part of a lot are all common triggers, so if you list a lot large enough to sever, expect the question.
What agents underestimate is not the approval itself but its tail. An approved consent typically arrives with conditions — parkland dedication, road widening, an entrance permit, or servicing confirmation — and the Planning Act runs two separate two-year clocks against it. Under s. 53(41), the applicant has two years from the notice of the consent decision to fulfil the conditions, or the application is deemed refused. Once conditions are met and a certificate is issued, a second two-year clock starts under s. 53(43): the granted consent itself lapses if the conveyance it approves is not carried out within two years of the certificate date. A deal that looked closed months earlier can unwind entirely if nobody diarized either clock. If severance is a condition of your buyer’s offer, or your seller’s ability to convey what they promised, build the Committee’s hearing calendar and both two-year windows into your conditional dates before you set them.
A seller lists a large lot with an accepted offer to convey the rear half to a buyer, conditional on severance consent. The Committee of Adjustment approves it with conditions six weeks after the hearing: a new right-of-way easement to the road, a lot-grading plan, and a cash-in-lieu parkland payment. An agent who wrote only “60 days for severance approval” into the conditional clause has to renegotiate the closing date; one who separately tracked the two-year condition-fulfillment clock does not get caught when the servicing confirmation takes longer than expected.
See also: right of way and condition precedent.
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