Closing week is not the week to discover a problem. Ten checks an agent should personally run, from the document set to non-resident withholding exposure, before the file reaches the closing table.
Key takeaways
STEP 01 OF 10
A seller’s existing mortgage has to be paid out and discharged as part of closing, and treadstonelaw’s seller closing-costs guidance notes this among the costs and adjustments a seller needs walked through in advance — mortgage payout figures and any prepayment penalty can take time for the lender to confirm, so this should be moving well before closing week, not started in it.
Confirm with the seller’s lawyer directly that the payout statement has actually been requested, rather than assuming it has — a late-arriving payout figure is one of the more common last-minute closing delays.
If the seller is carrying more than one mortgage, or a line of credit secured against the property, confirm every registered charge has its own discharge request in motion, not just the primary mortgage.
STEP 02 OF 10
treadstonelaw’s closing-day document checklist exists precisely because a closing file has a real, specific document checklist, and a missing item discovered on closing day is a needless scramble. Ask your client’s lawyer directly, mid-week, what is still outstanding rather than assuming silence means everything is in hand.
This is a five-minute call, not an imposition on the lawyer’s time — a mid-week status check is far cheaper for everyone than discovering a missing signature or an outstanding discharge statement on the morning of closing itself.
STEP 03 OF 10
Per treadstonelaw, both fulfilment and waiver of a condition "must be communicated in writing and delivered before the deadline." Pull the file and confirm every condition on it has that written record on file, not a verbal understanding that "we’re fine on financing now."
This is the point in the file where the discipline from the condition tracking system either pays off or reveals a gap — find out which, this week, not on the morning of closing.
STEP 04 OF 10
If this is a condo file, confirm the status certificate condition actually cleared on the correct clock. Per treadstonelaw, the review period should run from receipt of the certificate, not the date it was requested, and Ontario’s Condominium Act separately gives the corporation up to ten days to produce one.
If the certificate revealed a problem — an underfunded reserve fund, a pending special assessment, active litigation — confirm your buyer actually exercised their termination right within the review window if that is the direction they chose, rather than letting the window lapse by default.
STEP 05 OF 10
Per treadstonelaw, meeting a deposit deadline means funds "actually received... by the specified time, not simply that you’ve initiated a transfer." Confirm with the brokerage’s trust account directly that the deposit is showing as received, rather than relying on the buyer’s own confirmation that a wire was sent.
This is the one item on the file worth confirming twice — once when the deposit is supposed to have arrived, and again in closing week, since a deposit dispute discovered at the closing table is far harder to unwind than one caught earlier. See the deposit handling guide for the full sequence.
STEP 06 OF 10
treadstonelaw explains an owner’s policy "protects you in the amount of the purchase price" and covers items like undischarged liens, unregistered easements, encroachments, and title fraud after closing — but it excludes "the condition of the building" and environmental contamination in most cases, and "making a seller fix a problem before closing is cheaper than claiming on a policy after." Confirm the policy is actually ordered, not left as an assumed step somewhere in the lawyer’s file.
A lender’s policy protects the lender, up to the loan amount, and ends when the mortgage is discharged — it does not protect your buyer personally. Confirm your buyer understands the two policies are different before assuming the lender’s requirement covers them too.
STEP 07 OF 10
treadstonelaw’s buyer closing-costs guide and seller closing-costs guide cover the buyer and seller sides respectively: commission and HST, mortgage payout and any penalty, adjustments for prepaid taxes and utilities, and land transfer tax. Do the actual math for your client’s specific province and price point — see the worked comparison below — rather than a general "budget a few thousand extra."
Do this conversation in closing week even if it already happened once at the offer stage — final adjustment figures, an actual mortgage discharge penalty, and the precise land transfer tax owing are all more accurate once the closing documents are in hand than they were when the offer was drafted.
STEP 08 OF 10
If the seller is not a Canadian resident for tax purposes, ITA s.116 requires the purchaser to withhold and remit 25% of the amount by which the price exceeds the seller’s "certificate limit," unless a clearance certificate has already been issued — the rate rises to 50% for certain property types.
Treadstonelaw’s own practitioner note is the one worth repeating to a client immediately if this applies: "that certificate takes months, not weeks." See the worked example below for the actual dollar exposure this creates for a buyer without one.
STEP 09 OF 10
Confirm the walkthrough time, who is attending, and what happens if an issue surfaces during it, before the morning it is scheduled. A walkthrough discovery with no plan for what happens next just adds pressure to an already time-boxed closing day.
Agree in advance, with both lawyers if the issue is significant, on what a genuine problem at the walkthrough actually triggers — a holdback, a price adjustment, or a delayed closing are very different outcomes, and deciding among them for the first time in the driveway is the wrong moment.
STEP 10 OF 10
If a delay looks likely, treadstonelaw is explicit that an extension needs written agreement "from all original signatories," that "an amendment is not a waiver and not a notice of fulfilment," and that by default "the party who needs the extra time normally pays for it." Having the template and the "who pays" conversation ready before you need it saves a genuinely stressful conversation from also being a rushed one — see the closing-collapse action plan if it goes further than a short extension.
A property sells for $920,000. The non-resident seller’s certificate limit (broadly, their adjusted cost base) is $650,000. Without a clearance certificate in hand by closing, the purchaser must withhold and remit 25% of the difference: 25% × ($920,000 − $650,000) = 25% × $270,000 = $67,500.
That is real money coming off what the seller receives at closing, and a real administrative burden landing on the buyer’s side if it is discovered in closing week rather than flagged the moment non-residency is known. Raise this the moment you learn a seller may not be a Canadian resident for tax purposes, not during the final document review.
On a $920,000 purchase, Ontario land transfer tax under Ontario’s bracket schedule works out bracket by bracket to $14,875. The identical price in British Columbia, under BC’s Property Transfer Tax schedule, works out to $16,400 — a $1,525 difference on the same purchase price purely from which provincial schedule applies, before any municipal top-up like Toronto’s own Municipal Land Transfer Tax.
Never quote a client a land transfer tax figure from memory or from a different province’s number. Pull the current bracket schedule for the actual province and calculate it for the actual price, every time.
Toronto layers its own Municipal Land Transfer Tax on top of the provincial one, and its bracket structure mirrors Ontario’s up to $2,000,000 — so on the same $920,000 purchase above, the City’s own current rate schedule works out to the same $14,875, doubling the buyer’s total land-transfer bill to roughly $29,750 before any rebate. Confirm the actual City schedule before quoting a Toronto client, since the bracket structure changes above $3,000,000.
Waiting until closing day to ask whether the seller is a Canadian resident for tax purposes.
Waiting until closing day to ask whether the seller is a Canadian resident for tax purposes. ITA s.116 clearance can take months. Ask the moment the file opens, not the week it closes.
Treating a condition's verbal confirmation as good enough for the closing file. Fulfilment and waiver both need a written record delivered before the deadline — confirm it is actually on file, not just remembered.
Assuming the deposit cleared because the buyer said they sent it. Confirm directly with the brokerage trust account. "Sent" and "received" are different facts with different consequences.
Letting the final walkthrough slip to the morning of closing with no buffer. A discovery during the walkthrough with no time to react turns a manageable issue into a closing-day crisis.
Quoting a land transfer tax figure from memory instead of the current bracket schedule. The rate bands, and even the brackets themselves, change — Toronto's own municipal tax added new high-value brackets effective April 1, 2026. Pull the current schedule every time.
Flag it immediately to both lawyers. Without a clearance certificate, the purchaser is on the hook to withhold and remit 25% of the gain above the certificate limit — the certificate itself can take months, so late discovery is a genuine problem, not just an inconvenience.
The buyer, in both Ontario and British Columbia, calculated on the province's own bracket schedule — and in Toronto, on top of a separate municipal tax.
Yes, if nobody walks them through commission, mortgage payout and any penalty, and adjustments before closing week. Do the math with them well ahead of the closing table.
If the buyer's condition is still open, they generally retain the right to terminate and recover the deposit within the review window — confirm the window's actual deadline and whether it has already been triggered.
A short call is enough to catch what's still outstanding before closing week gets tight.
