The short answer is no. If you see a house for sale and you simply want a real estate professional to show you that house, you’re not required to sign a contract.
Simply viewing a home with a real estate professional doesn’t trigger a regulatory requirement to sign a contract with that real estate professional. However, if you start sharing confidential information such as your motivation for buying or your financial qualification, the real estate professional has a responsibility to clarify your working relationship, at which point they are going to provide you with some documents to review.
In the process of clarifying your working relationship, the first document a real estate professional should present to you is the Consumer Relationships Guide. The Consumer Relationships Guide is a mandatory document for real estate professionals when they begin working with a buyer or seller of residential real estate. It explains the different types of working relationships between real estate professionals and consumers.
The Consumer Relationships Guide is not a contract. It does not commit you to a specific ongoing working relationship with your real estate professional, but it is an essential information piece for consumers to understand what working with a licensed real estate professional entails. Among other things, it discusses responsibilities and obligations.
The Consumer Relationships Guide contains an acknowledgement that consumers have to sign indicating they’ve read the Guide, understand it, and have been provided with an opportunity to ask the real estate professional questions about it. Consumers need to review and sign the Guide before entering into any contract with a real estate professional.
Some real estate professionals may actually present the Consumer Relationships Guide and request that you sign the acknowledgement even before showing you a single property, but that specific practice is not a requirement.
“Ask Charles” is a question and answer column by Charles Stevenson, Director of Professional Standards with the Real Estate Council of Alberta (RECA), www.reca.ca. RECA is the independent, non-government agency responsible for the regulation of Alberta’s real estate industry. We license, govern, and set the standards of practice for all real estate, mortgage brokerage, and real estate appraisal professionals in Alberta. To submit a question, email askcharles@reca.ca.
