Offer Conditional on the Sale of Your Home in Quebec: How the Condition Really Works

You found the house, but yours has not sold. Buy first and you may end up carrying two mortgages; sell first and the house you want may be gone. In Quebec, a promise to purchase can be made conditional on the sale of the buyer's current home, which is how many move-up buyers bridge that gap. Our complete guide to the Quebec promise to purchase covers the whole document. This article covers only this condition: what it protects, what the seller usually asks for in return, and the moment it forces you to choose.

What the condition protects, and what it costs the seller

In plain terms the condition says: I will buy your property if I sell mine by a given date. If that sale does not happen in time, you are not bound to buy and the promise falls away. You avoid owning two homes with two mortgages and no idea when the first will sell.

For the seller, the same condition has a price. Their property is tied to a sale they do not control, yours, which depends on your asking price, your neighbourhood and the market. Meanwhile other buyers may come along. That is why an offer carrying this condition is often seen as weaker than an unconditional one at the same price, and why sellers try to limit its reach.

Sold when? Accepted offer, firm deal or signed deed

"Sold" has no single meaning. Depending on how the condition is written, it can be satisfied at any of three points:

• when you accept an offer on your home, even if that offer still has its own conditions;
• when that offer goes firm, meaning its inspection, financing or other conditions have been lifted;
• when the deed of sale for your home is signed before the notary.

The later the trigger, the safer you are: an accepted offer on your house can still collapse if its buyer's financing falls through. But the later the trigger, the longer the seller waits and the less willing they are to accept. The choice is negotiated, and it should be written without ambiguity, with a hard deadline.

The seller's right to keep marketing the property

What sellers commonly ask in exchange is the right to stay on the market. The listing stays up, showings continue, and the seller may receive other offers despite yours. That right exists only if the promise to purchase provides for it; it is part of what gets negotiated at acceptance.

For you, this means an accepted conditional offer does not hold the property for you until your sale deadline. It gives you priority, along with an obligation to decide if another buyer shows up.

The notice: waive the condition or walk away

If the seller receives another offer they like, the usual mechanism is a written notice to you. A short deadline, set in your promise, starts to run. Within it you have two options:

• waive the sale condition: your purchase stands as if the condition had never been there, and you buy whether or not your home has sold;
• let the promise end: you lose the property and the seller is free to proceed with the other offer.

Silence has its own consequences under the promise; in practice it usually means your offer ends. The deadline generally runs from receipt of the notice, and when a document counts as received is not a technicality. We looked at the same question for acceptances in a signed acceptance is not a received acceptance; treat this notice with the same care.

Waiving: what you are now committing to pay for

Waiving the condition means taking on the risk it was covering. You commit to close on the agreed date whether your home has sold or not. So you need to be able to fund the purchase without your sale proceeds: with a bridge loan if your home is sold but closes later, or with enough borrowing capacity to carry two properties if it is not sold yet.

Check this with your lender before you waive, not after. If your promise also has a financing condition, it protects you only as far as its wording goes; our article on the financing clause in a Quebec promise to purchase sets out what it does and does not cover. A lender who approved a purchase on the assumption that your house would sell has not necessarily approved the same purchase without that sale.

Drafting the condition: what to pin down in writing

A well-drafted sale condition leaves no doubt on these points:

• which property must be sold, identified precisely;
• which event counts as a sale: accepted offer, firm offer or signed deed;
• the deadline by which that event must happen;
• whether the seller may stay on the market, and on what terms;
• the form of the seller's notice, how it is delivered, and the response deadline;
• what happens if you do not respond in time.

Your broker drafts these terms with you in the promise and the annexes designed for it. Before you sign, ask yourself one hard question: can your home realistically sell by that deadline at the price you have in mind? A condition with an unrealistic date does not protect you; it only postpones the moment you will have to choose.