Published 11 September 2026 · By Jatin Dua, Broker of Record, RE/MAX Quantum Realty
You can only change the completion date in an Ontario real estate transaction two ways: both parties sign an amendment, or one party exercises a unilateral right that was written into the agreement before acceptance. The clause library gives you three unilateral rights and one restatement of the obvious. COMP-3 (Change of Completion Date – Mutual Agreement) confers no right on anyone — it records that the parties may agree in writing, which they could have done regardless. The clauses that actually move a date are COMP-1, COMP-2 and COMP-4, and each one is only as good as the three blanks you fill in: the direction, the maximum number of days, and the notice period.
The extension that was never an extension
The call usually comes four business days before closing. The buyer’s lender has not funded, the lawyer needs a week, and the agent tells me there is no problem because the agreement has a clause that lets the completion date be changed. I ask them to send me the schedule. It is COMP-3 (Change of Completion Date – Mutual Agreement), and it gives their buyer nothing at all.
COMP-3 records that the buyer and seller may agree in writing to move the date. They could have agreed in writing to move the date without it. Two parties to a contract have always been free to vary it by mutual consent. The clause is a signpost, not a right, and the moment the other side says no it is worth precisely what it cost you to type.
The other three clauses in this group are a different animal. Each one hands one named party the ability to move the date without the other party’s consent, on stated terms, and that is a real contractual right your client either has or does not have at the moment the offer is accepted.
Four clauses, three of which do something
Pull the actual wording from your own OREA member copy before you draft. What follows is what each one is for, not what it says.
| Clause | Who gets the right | What it does |
|---|---|---|
| COMP-1 (Change of Completion Date by Buyer) | Buyer, unilaterally | Lets the buyer advance or postpone completion by up to a stated maximum number of days, on written notice to the seller or the seller’s solicitor a stated number of days in advance |
| COMP-2 (Change of Completion Date by Seller) | Seller, unilaterally | The mirror image, running in the seller’s favour, with notice to the buyer or the buyer’s solicitor |
| COMP-3 (Change of Completion Date – Mutual Agreement) | Nobody | Confirms the parties may advance or postpone by written mutual agreement. No unilateral right is created |
| COMP-4 (Change of Completion Date – Probate Trustee) | Seller, unilaterally, for one purpose | Lets an estate seller postpone one or more times up to a total cap, on written notice counted excluding weekends and statutory holidays, for the purpose of obtaining the Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee |
Notice what separates COMP-4 from COMP-2. COMP-2 is a general right to move the date for any reason or none. COMP-4 is narrow: tied to a stated purpose, exercisable more than once, capped in total, and counted in business days rather than calendar days.
The blanks are the clause
Each of COMP-1, COMP-2 and COMP-4 arrives with blanks in it, and the blanks are where agents do the damage. There are four decisions and none of them is a default.
- Direction. Advance, postpone, or both. This is a single word and it is the most consequential one in the clause. A right to postpone and a right to advance are not the same concession and should never be granted absent-mindedly together.
- Maximum days. The cap on how far the date can move. Leave it generous and you have given away the closing date. Leave it tight and your client cannot use the right when they need it.
- Notice lead time. How many days in advance the notice must be given. This is the other side’s protection, and if you are drafting for the party receiving notice it is the number you negotiate hardest.
- Who is served. The clause contemplates notice to the other party or to that party’s solicitor. Decide which, and make sure it sits comfortably with the notice provisions already in the agreement.
There is one mechanical detail in COMP-1 and COMP-2 that repays close reading. The notice lead time is not measured only against the original completion date. It is measured against the earlier of the original date and the new date being set. Work through why. If the right includes advancing, and the lead time ran only from the original date, a party could pull completion forward and still be giving notice that is technically early against a date that no longer matters. Measuring from the earlier of the two dates means the other side always gets the stated warning before the date that actually binds them.
The short version
A mutual agreement clause is not an extension right. If your client needs the ability to move a closing without asking permission, that right has to be drafted in before acceptance, with a direction, a cap and a notice period you chose on purpose.
Advancing is not the mirror image of postponing
Agents treat the advance and postpone options as two flavours of the same thing. They are not. Postponing costs the other side carrying costs, a rebooked mover, possibly an extension on a rate hold. It is expensive and annoying. Advancing can be fatal.
A buyer whose mortgage commitment funds on a fixed date cannot simply close eleven days early because the seller decided to. A seller who has given a tenant notice tied to the closing date cannot deliver vacant possession sooner. A client in a chain who is buying and selling on the same day cannot move one leg without moving the other. I have seen a seller-side advance right, granted without a thought during a midnight counter-offer, come close to blowing up a two-property chain.
So my rule is simple. If you are drafting for the party who will receive notice, resist the word advance. If you are drafting for the party exercising the right, ask whether they need it in both directions.
COMP-4 and the estate file
An estate cannot convey good title until the estate trustee has the authority to convey it, and the Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee comes on the court’s timetable rather than the seller’s. That is the entire reason COMP-4 exists. Nobody in the transaction controls the delay, so the clause allocates it to the buyer in advance instead of leaving everyone to fight about it in the last week.
Two features to hold on to. First, the right can be exercised more than once, so the meaningful number is the total cap, not the per-notice amount. If you fill in a per-notice figure and a total that is ten times larger, you have agreed your buyer will wait most of a year. Second, the notice period excludes Saturdays, Sundays and statutory holidays, which is a different counting convention from most of the dates in the rest of the agreement. Count it correctly or you will argue about a notice that was one day short.
From the buyer side, the question I ask is always the same: what happens if the cap runs out and there is still no certificate? A buyer with a rate hold expiring or a firm sale behind them needs an outside date beyond which they can walk and recover the deposit. That is a drafted term, and it is a term for the lawyer.
Time is still of the essence on the new date
Moving a completion date does not soften the deadline. It relocates it. Ontario courts have upheld terminations over very short delays where time was of the essence: 3 Gill Homes Inc. v. 5009796 Ontario Inc. (Kassar Homes), 2024 ONCA 6, on a payment thirty-five minutes late, and Correa v. Valstar Homes (Oakville Sixth Line) Inc., 2025 ONCA 156, on nine minutes. Those are reported outcomes on their own facts, and the facts were commercial and builder-side, but the direction of travel is not subtle.
The picture is not one-sided. In VanderMolen Homes Inc. v. Mani, 2025 ONCA 45, as reported, buyers who had waived conditions and paid the deposit were held to the agreement even though the seller’s acceptance of an extension arrived a day late, because the parties’ subsequent conduct kept the agreement alive. A missed technical deadline does not automatically kill a deal. And in More v. 1362279 Ontario Ltd. (Seiko Homes), 2023 ONCA 527, a seller who was not ready, willing and able could not rely on time being of the essence, with the court treating pouncing on a trivial delay as unreasonable. Where neither party was ready, as in 2511899 Ontario Inc. v. 2221465 Ontario Inc., 2024 ONSC 4159, neither could rely on the clause.
What you take from that set is not a rule. It is that the outcome turns on conduct and readiness, is decided after the fact by a judge, and costs both clients a great deal to find out.
The short version
A moved date is a real deadline. Exercise the right by the method the agreement requires, keep the proof, and never tell a client that a day or two will not matter because you read about a case where it did not.
When the date moves, the money does not move with it
If a date change goes wrong and the transaction collapses, the deposit does not come back on its own. A brokerage may only disburse trust money on a written direction signed by all parties to the agreement, or on a court order. Those are the two routes and there is no third. A formal mutual release is not strictly required — what is required is the written direction from everyone, and the standard release happens to contain one. The brokerage has no discretion here and its signature is not what releases the money. I have covered the mechanics in more detail in the deposit clauses post.
Keep the two deposit clocks straight while you are at it, because amendments sometimes carry a further deposit. Contractually, the standard agreement treats delivery upon acceptance as delivery to the deposit holder within twenty-four hours of acceptance. Separately, the regulations require a brokerage to get trust money into its trust account within five business days. Different obligations, owed to different people.
Your exposure as the registrant who drafted it
A unilateral date change right is a contractual power that exists because somebody typed it. If the cap is wrong, if the direction word is wrong, if you named the wrong party as the one who gets the right, that is not the lawyer’s error at closing. It was yours at 11pm during a counter-offer.
The other exposure is verbal. Do not tell a client that the lawyers will simply extend it if there is a problem. They may not. The other side may have a competing closing, a moving truck booked, or a reason to want out. Telling a client a deadline is soft when it is not is the kind of reassurance that gets repeated back to you in a statement of claim.
If the other side is self-represented, tread carefully. RECO’s guidance requires you to confirm the person intends to proceed without representation before you assist them, deliver and explain the RECO Information Guide and the Information and Disclosure to Self-Represented Party form, say plainly that you act for your client and not for them, and make reasonable efforts to obtain their written acknowledgement. What you must not do is advise them on price, terms or contract clauses. Walking an unrepresented seller through whether to accept your buyer’s proposed extension is advising on terms.
How I want this handled
- Ask before you draft whether your client has any date flexibility at all. A buyer with a rate hold, a firm sale behind them and a lease ending has none, and should be very slow to grant a seller a right to move.
- Choose the direction word deliberately. Write advance or postpone, not both, unless both are genuinely needed.
- Fill in every blank. An unfilled cap or notice period is an invitation to argue about what the parties intended, and that argument is decided by someone who was not in the room.
- Check the clause against the agreement’s notice provisions, then tell your client in writing how notice must be given.
- On an estate file, treat the total cap as the number that matters and send the buyer to their lawyer about an outside date.
- When the right is exercised, deliver by the required method, date-stamp it, confirm receipt, and copy both solicitors the same day.
The short version
Three blanks and one word decide whether your client can move a closing. Fill them in on purpose, exercise the right the way the agreement says, and never treat a mutual agreement clause as insurance.
Questions agents actually ask
Can a buyer extend the closing date without the seller agreeing?
Only if the agreement already gave them that right. COMP-1 lets a buyer advance or postpone completion by up to a stated number of days on stated written notice, without the seller’s consent. Without a clause like that in the agreement before acceptance, the buyer needs a signed amendment, and a seller who has their own closing to fund is under no obligation to sign one.
What does COMP-3 actually do?
Very little. It confirms the buyer and seller may advance or postpone completion by mutual agreement in writing, which they could do anyway as parties to a contract. It creates no unilateral right and provides no protection if the other side refuses. If you inserted it thinking your client had secured flexibility, they did not.
Why is the notice period measured from the earlier of the two completion dates?
Because the right can include advancing the date. If the notice period ran only from the original date, a party could pull completion forward and still be technically early against a date that no longer matters. Measuring from the earlier of the original and the amended date guarantees the receiving party gets the full stated warning before whichever date actually binds them.
How many days should I put in the maximum-days blank?
There is no standard number and anyone who gives you one has not read your file. It depends on what is driving the risk: lender funding, a status certificate, an estate certificate, a tenant’s notice period. Ask what event the client is waiting on, find out how long that event realistically takes, and negotiate the cap from there rather than copying whatever the last agent sent you.
Does moving the completion date affect the deposit?
Not by itself. But if the deal later collapses, the deposit does not return automatically. A brokerage may disburse trust money only on a written direction signed by all parties to the agreement or on a court order. The brokerage has no say and its signature is not required. Tell clients this early, because they assume a dead deal means an automatic refund.
My client missed the new closing date by a few hours. Is the deal dead?
That is a question for their lawyer and it turns on the facts. Ontario courts have upheld terminations over delays measured in minutes where time was of the essence, and have also refused to let a party who was not ready, willing and able rely on the clause. Conduct after the missed date matters too. Do not offer your client a prediction.
The clause checklist I make my own agents use
A one-page pre-submission check for conditions and schedules — the dates, the notice route, and the eight things that get missed. Built for Ontario agents. Free, and there is no drip campaign behind it.
Separately — if you have ever wondered what your last twelve months would have paid on a different split, run it through Quantum Leap. Six questions, no signup wall.
Who checks your closing dates before acceptance?
Date change rights get drafted late at night in a counter-offer and read carefully for the first time three days before closing. At my brokerage every agreement is reviewed before it goes out, and the person reviewing it has signed off on thousands. If nobody is doing that for you, let us talk.
Book a 15-minute call or call or text 833-330-1925.
If the honest answer is that your current brokerage is fine, I will tell you that.
Related reading
- Electronic Signature Consent in Ontario Real Estate: What the Clause Does and Does Not Cover
- HST Clauses in an Ontario APS: When the Buyer Is a Registrant and Why It Matters
- Residential Lease Clauses in Ontario: What You Can Add, What the RTA Overrides
- Well and Septic Conditions in Ontario: Approvals, Warranties and the Inspection Most Agents Skip
- The UFFI Warranty in Ontario: A 1980 Ban That Still Creates Liability in 2026
- Every clause and condition guide in one place
- OREA, Guidelines for Residential and Commercial Clauses, revised 19 May 2026 (OREA member resource)
- OREA Form 100, Agreement of Purchase and Sale (completion and deposit provisions)
- VanderMolen Homes Inc. v. Mani, 2025 ONCA 45
- High Tower Homes Corp. v. Stevens, 2014 ONCA 911
- 3 Gill Homes Inc. v. 5009796 Ontario Inc. (Kassar Homes), 2024 ONCA 6
- More v. 1362279 Ontario Ltd. (Seiko Homes), 2023 ONCA 527
- RECO Information Bulletin 2.4, Self-represented parties
Jatin Dua is Broker of Record and co-founder of RE/MAX Quantum Realty, Brokerage, Unit 101, 799 The Queensway, Etobicoke. Four-plus years in the GTA and more than $100M in sales volume. He reviews the agreements his agents write.
This is professional commentary from a Broker of Record on drafting practice around completion date changes in Ontario agreements of purchase and sale. It is not legal advice. Whether a particular notice was effective, whether a deadline was met, and what follows from a failed closing are questions for the client’s 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.