The most misunderstood protection in Ontario pre-construction is the cooling-off period, because it is a condominium rule that gets repeated as if it were a pre-construction rule. It is not. Section 73 of the Condominium Act, 1998 gives a buyer of a new condominium a statutory right to rescind — to cancel — within 10 days. A buyer of a standalone new freehold home has no equivalent statutory right in force today. In this catalogue, 58 of the 168 records include a condominium type; for the other 110, this right is not part of the deal, whatever the sales conversation implied. This is the general framework; your agreement and your lawyer govern your purchase.
What starts the clock
Not the signing alone. The 10 days run from the later of the day you receive:
- a copy of the fully executed agreement of purchase and sale,
- the builder’s disclosure statement, and
- the Condo Buyers’ Guide published by the Condominium Authority of Ontario.
The days are calendar days — weekends and holidays count. If any of the three documents arrives after you sign, your clock starts when the last of them lands, which is one reason the receipt dates matter and should be kept.
What rescission does
A buyer who rescinds inside the window gives the builder written notice within the 10 days, and is entitled to the return of all money paid under the agreement, including deposits. No reason is required and no penalty applies — that is the design of the right: the disclosure statement for a new condominium runs to hundreds of pages, and the statute gives buyers a defined window to have it reviewed, usually by a lawyer, with an exit that costs nothing but the decision.
What it does not do
- It does not extend itself. Miss the window and the right is gone; the agreement proceeds under its own terms. Builders sometimes offer contractual review periods on other products — those are whatever the contract says, not this statute.
- It does not cover freehold. A detached or freehold townhouse purchase outside a condominium structure has no statutory cooling-off period in force today. (Freehold homes that are legally condominiums — common-element or vacant-land condominiums, including many POTL towns — are a different matter: the Act follows the legal structure, not the look of the building.) Rules in this area have been under active change; the HCRA page linked below is the current official summary to check against your agreement date.
- It is not the only clock running. Material changes to the disclosure statement can create fresh rights later in the process, and Tarion’s addendum governs timelines and delayed closings on the warranty side. The 10 days are the first deadline in a purchase, not the last.
The catalogue angle
When a record on this site is a condominium, the cooling-off right is part of its legal furniture whether the project page mentions it or not — and when a record is freehold, no amount of launch-day language creates one. Sorting the 58 from the 110 is a fact this catalogue can give you before you sign anything: the property type is on every project page, on the record, where it belongs.