The Seller Property Information Statement Doesn't Travel Alone

A Seller Property Information Statement almost never sits by itself in a file. Next to it there's usually an MLS listing with its own description of the property, sometimes a home inspection report from a year or two back, sometimes a survey, sometimes a string of old emails about a past insurance claim. In the files a2scale's transaction coordinators work inside, the SPIS answers get read, they get filed, and the rest of what's already sitting in that same folder doesn't automatically get set next to them for a second look. That's not a defect in the form. It's a gap in whose role that second look falls under, and it's worth walking through what the form actually is, where its answers have caused real trouble before, and what it looks like to read it against everything else already in the file.

What Is a Seller Property Information Statement in Ontario?

A Seller Property Information Statement (SPIS), OREA Form 220, is a disclosure form the seller fills out about the property's condition: structural concerns, past water damage, renovations, known defects. It's optional in Ontario. Most real estate boards leave the decision to the seller and listing agent, and plenty of transactions close with no SPIS in the file at all. The one exception is Thunder Bay, where the local real estate board makes it mandatory. Where it's used, it becomes a working part of the file. Where it isn't, the gap it would have filled has to get handled some other way.

What the Form Actually Represents

The SPIS is the seller's statement, in the seller's own words, about what they know. It isn't an inspection, and the form itself says so in its own boilerplate: it's not a substitute for an independent inspection, and it reflects what the seller believes to be true, not a professional assessment of the property's condition. That distinction matters for what comes next, because the question that's actually been tested in court and in front of regulators isn't whether a seller's answer turned out wrong. Sellers get things wrong, misremember a repair, forget a leak from eight years ago. The question that's mattered is what happened on the way from the seller's pen to the buyer's hands.

Where an Inaccurate SPIS Has Actually Cost an Agent Money

The Pattern in Both Cases Is the Same, and It Points Somewhere Specific

What Krawchuk and the Godfrey finding have in common isn't that an SPIS turned out wrong. It's that nobody with a professional obligation to do something about it actually did anything with the answer before it went out the door. The seller's word moved from the form to the buyer with nothing standing between the two.

That's the reasoning worth extending, carefully. If an agent is already expected not to pass along a seller's SPIS answer with no independent basis for it, the same expectation reaches further than most files currently treat it. A seller's SPIS answer sitting three pages away from an inspection report that flagged something different, or next to MLS remarks that describe the property in a way that doesn't quite square with what the SPIS says, is the same kind of unexamined pass-through the courts and RECO have already punished. No case has been built on that specific pairing yet, as far as the public record shows. But the logic that got an agent held liable for not looking past a seller's word on its own doesn't obviously stop at the edge of that one form. It's the same seller's word, just sitting next to a second document instead of standing alone.

What Reading the SPIS Against the Rest of the File Actually Looks Like

Why the Gap Matters Most on Older Homes and Estate Sales

An SPIS is only as good as what the person filling it out actually knows. On an estate sale, the seller answering the form is often an executor who never lived in the property and is relying on secondhand information, or checking "do not know" across most of the form. On an older home, the SPIS covers what the current seller knows, which may not include what happened three owners ago. In both cases, the rest of the file, an old inspection report, permit history, a survey with a prior owner's name on it, carries more of the actual picture than the SPIS itself does. That's exactly the situation where reading the SPIS next to what else is on file matters most, and where an SPIS read in isolation tells the smallest part of the story.

Where This Sits in a2scale's Work, and Where It Doesn't

a2scale's transaction coordinators build and manage the listing file as a matter of course: critical dates, document collection, signature management, brokerage paperwork. Being inside the file for that reason is what puts an SPIS and an old inspection report in front of the same person at the same time. When something in one doesn't line up with something in another, that gets flagged for the agent's review, surfaced before the listing goes live, not silently resolved and not silently let go. The read is never the answer. It's a second pair of eyes noticing something the licensed agent, who is the one actually accountable for the file, gets to weigh in on with the facts already gathered in one place instead of scattered across three documents nobody set next to each other.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is the Seller Property Information Statement mandatory in Ontario?

No, not province-wide. Most Ontario real estate boards leave the decision to use an SPIS (OREA Form 220) up to the seller and listing agent. The one exception is the Thunder Bay board, which requires it locally. A transaction can close with a full paper trail and no SPIS in the file at all.

Can a seller refuse to fill out an SPIS?

Yes. Since the form is optional across most of Ontario, a seller can decline to complete one, and many do, particularly for estate sales or properties the seller never lived in. When that happens, buyers typically lean more heavily on their own inspection and due diligence.

Is an SPIS a substitute for a home inspection?

No. The form itself states that it isn't a substitute for an independent inspection. It reflects what the seller believes to be true about the property, not a professional assessment of its condition. A buyer relying only on an SPIS, with no inspection of their own, is relying on the seller's memory and honesty alone.

Who is liable if an SPIS answer turns out to be inaccurate?

The seller carries the primary exposure, but Ontario courts have held listing agents jointly liable when they passed along an inaccurate SPIS answer with no independent basis for believing it. Krawchuk v. Scherbak is the leading case: a false answer about foundation issues led to roughly $110,000 in buyer remediation costs and joint liability for the listing agent.

Does a transaction coordinator review the SPIS?

A TC working inside a file reads the SPIS as part of building the file out, the same as every other document in it. That's different from making a determination about what it means. When an SPIS answer and something else in the file, like an inspection report or MLS remarks, don't obviously line up, that gets surfaced to the licensed agent before the listing goes live. The agent decides what it means, not the TC.