Designated Representation Agreement Ontario: The SERV Clauses

Last updated 11 September 2026. Written by Jatin Dua, Broker of Record at RE/MAX Quantum Realty, 799 The Queensway, Etobicoke · For Ontario registrants · 10 min read

Two stacks, one of which is not yours to use

An agent moves brokerages, keeps the forms folder they built over four years, and puts a representation agreement in front of a seller that names them as designated representative. Their new brokerage operates brokerage representation. The document does not match the model the brokerage runs, and nobody notices until a compliance review, or worse, until the seller’s lawyer reads it during a dispute.

That is what the SERV category is really about. Eight of its clauses are the same four ideas written twice, once for each representation model. SERV-5 (Designated Representation Agreement Seller Services), SERV-6 (Buyer Services), SERV-7 (Landlord Services) and SERV-8 (Tenant Services) name the designated representative of the brokerage as the party agreeing with the client. SERV-9 through SERV-12 cover the same four client types with the brokerage as the party. Everything else about them is structurally alike.

So the first question is never which clause. It is which model your brokerage operates. Get that wrong and the clause you picked is irrelevant, because the agreement it sits in is the wrong agreement.

The model is the brokerage’s decision

TRESA Phase 2 came into force on 1 December 2023 and gave Ontario two representation models. Under brokerage representation the brokerage represents the client and the brokerage’s duties run to that client. Under designated representation the brokerage designates one or more specific registrants to represent the client, and the relationship is built around those named individuals rather than around the firm.

Which model applies is the brokerage’s call. Not the agent’s preference, not the client’s request, not whatever the last office did. If you have been choosing between these stacks based on the deal in front of you, stop — you have been making a decision that belongs to your broker of record. For context, RE/MAX Quantum operates under brokerage representation, which is why SERV-9 through SERV-12 are the clauses my agents work with.

The models are not cosmetic. Under designated representation, confidential client information must not be shared with other registrants at the brokerage without written consent, which changes how a designated representative can use the office around them — the conversation at the next desk, the file note in the shared system, the casual mention in a sales meeting. If your brokerage runs designated representation and your internal habits were built under the old regime, that gap is a live compliance problem rather than a theoretical one.

What these clauses actually say, and what agents think they say

Each of the eight clauses has the same two moving parts.

The first is a blank where services are listed, framed so that the provider — the designated representative in one stack, the brokerage in the other — decides which of them the engagement calls for and when. The examples supplied with the clauses run along familiar lines: preparing a comparative market analysis, checking property information for accuracy, advertising, advising on negotiations, helping complete conditions or terms in an offer, and for tenancy work, helping a landlord qualify a tenant or helping a tenant with an application and the provincial tenancy form.

The second is a sentence providing that remuneration set out in the agreement is not reduced because one or more of the listed services were not provided, performed or delivered. That is the part agents read as a shield. It is narrower than it looks.

Put those two together and you get the honest reading: the list is a menu of services that may be provided at the provider’s discretion, not a schedule of promises, and the remuneration is not tied item-by-item to delivery. That is a defensible commercial arrangement and clients accept it routinely. It is not a licence to list twelve services and perform four.

Filling the blank is a drafting decision, not a formality

Most agents fill this blank by copying whatever their office template contains, which means the list is either generic to the point of meaninglessness or wildly over-inclusive. Both create problems and the second creates more.

My rule is to list what will actually be done on this engagement, in words a client would use, and to add anything that has been specifically promised in conversation. If you told a seller at the listing appointment that you would run professional photography and a specific advertising plan, that belongs in the blank. If you are not going to hold open houses, do not list open houses because the template does.

There is a second reason to be deliberate. Where the engagement is genuinely limited, there are clauses built for that: SERV-1 (Offer Presentation Only) records that the only service is presenting an offer for the client’s consideration, and SERV-2 (No Market Analysis) records that no market analysis of estimated value will be provided. If you are providing a reduced service, say so in a clause designed for it rather than by leaving a services list quietly short.

SERV-3 (Disclosure of Information) and SERV-4 (Motivation Disclosure) are a different animal again — consents from a seller allowing the amount they are prepared to accept, or their motivation, to be disclosed to a buyer. Think hard before using either. They sit close to the open offer rules, where the number of competing written offers must be disclosed to everyone making an offer without anyone’s consent, but the substance of an offer may be shared only on the seller’s direction and must never include the offeror’s personal information or anything that identifies them. And under the advertising rules you must not reveal the contents of an agreement, including price, without all parties’ consent. I have written more on that in the post on offer content disclosure clauses.

Multiple representation triggers differ between the models

This is the difference that catches experienced agents, because they learned multiple representation under a regime that no longer exists. The triggers for multiple representation are not the same under the two models, so the question of when you are in it depends on which model your brokerage operates. If you assume the answer you learned in 2019, you will be wrong under at least one of them.

Where multiple representation does arise, the requirements are firm. There must be written disclosure, best efforts to confirm the client received it, and each client’s written consent given after they received it. The disclosure has to advise clients to seek independent professional advice first. And once you are in it, your role changes: you become a facilitator, which means no advice on offer price and no advice on negotiating strategy to either side.

Say that last part out loud to your client before it happens, not after. The moment an agent in multiple representation offers a view on what to offer, they have stepped outside the role — and in a competing-offer situation that is exactly the moment a client will ask.

The related clauses in the termination category are worth knowing here too, because several of them exist to swap in a different designated representative when a client objects to their representative acting on both sides. I have set out what those do, and what they do not do, in the post on terminating a representation agreement.

The RECO Information Guide, and the acknowledgement everyone gets wrong

The Guide must be given and explained before you provide services to a client or assistance to a self-represented party. Given and explained. Emailing a PDF with no covering conversation does not satisfy the second half, and the second half is the part that gets missed.

Here is the correction worth carrying away. There is no statutory requirement to obtain an acknowledgement for the RECO Information Guide. There is a requirement for written acknowledgement on the self-represented party form, and agents merge the two in their heads constantly — some chase signatures on the Guide they do not need, and some skip the acknowledgement on the self-represented party form that they do. Know which document you are holding.

The self-represented party rules sit alongside all of this. Confirm the person intends to proceed unrepresented before assisting them, deliver and explain the Guide and the self-represented party form, state plainly that you represent your client and not them, and make reasonable efforts to obtain written acknowledgement. You must not advise a self-represented party on price, terms or contract clauses. And your brokerage must not agree with a self-represented seller to provide assistance or to charge or collect remuneration.

Disclosure has to be separate from the agreement

A drafting habit worth breaking: disclosures must be distinct and separate from the representation agreement and from the agreement that facilitates the transaction. That means a disclosure buried in a schedule to an agreement of purchase and sale is not doing its job, however clearly it is written and however prominently it sits on the page.

The instinct to consolidate is understandable — fewer documents, fewer signatures, fewer things a client can lose. It is also the wrong instinct here, and it is the kind of shortcut that looks efficient right up until someone asks where the disclosure was made.

Remuneration disclosure has its own timing. Where remuneration terms would affect whether an offer is accepted, they must be disclosed as soon as possible after the offer is made and before any offer is accepted. As soon as possible is not the same as before closing, and it is not the same as when it comes up.

Your exposure, and how I handle it

The exposure in this category is quiet. Nobody complains about a services clause on the day it is signed. It surfaces eighteen months later, attached to a complaint about something else, when a client produces the agreement and asks why the services listed in it did not happen. At that point the document is evidence, and it was drafted by you.

Worth keeping in view: TRESA Phase 3 is not law. It is at consultation stage, and you should treat anything you read describing Phase 3 as settled with real caution. Administrative monetary penalties have been authorised under TRESA since 2020 but are not enacted, and no date has been set for them. Agents repeat both of these as though they were in force. They are not.

1. Confirm with your broker of record which representation model your brokerage operates, in writing, before you use any representation agreement template.
2. Use the stack that matches: SERV-5 to SERV-8 for designated representation, SERV-9 to SERV-12 for brokerage representation.
3. Pick the clause for the actual client type — seller, buyer, landlord or tenant. Landlord and tenant engagements get their own clauses for a reason.
4. Fill the services blank with what you will genuinely do, including anything you promised at the listing or buyer appointment.
5. Where the engagement is limited, use the clauses built for limited service rather than a quietly short list.
6. Deliver and explain the RECO Information Guide before you provide services, and record that you explained it. Do not chase an acknowledgement the rules do not require, and do not skip the one they do.
7. Keep disclosures out of the representation agreement and out of the agreement of purchase and sale. Separate documents.
8. Under designated representation, treat confidential client information as not shareable inside the brokerage without written consent, including in the conversations nobody writes down.

Every one of those is a two-minute step, and the whole list is shorter than the conversation you will have if you skip them.

Questions agents actually ask

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This is professional commentary from a Broker of Record on representation agreements and drafting practice under TRESA, not legal advice. Which representation model applies to you is your brokerage’s decision, and questions about the enforceability or interpretation of a representation agreement belong with a lawyer. This is general professional commentary from a Broker of Record on drafting practice. It is not legal advice, it is not a substitute for your own brokerage’s policies, and it does not create any professional relationship. Clause codes refer to OREA’s Guidelines for Residential and Commercial Clauses, an OREA member resource — the clause wording itself is OREA’s and is not reproduced here. Always work from your brokerage’s approved forms, and send your client to a lawyer for anything turning on interpretation, enforceability or remedy. Legislation, regulator guidance and case law all change; verify anything you are relying on.