What actually happens on closing day in Ontario?

Your lawyer registers the transfer and pays the land transfer tax. Registration runs 8:30 am to 5 pm on business days, and keys follow it, not the clock.

Closing day is the day the house legally becomes yours. Almost none of it happens in front of you, and the part that feels like the milestone, getting the keys, is the last step rather than the first.

Who actually does the work on closing day?

Your lawyer does, and the order is fixed. CMHC sets it out in three steps: "Your lender will provide the mortgage money to your lawyer or notary," "You must provide the rest of the purchase price to your lawyer or notary as well as the closing costs," and "Your lawyer or notary pays the person who is selling the house, registers the home in your name, and then gives you the deed and keys to your new home."

Read that in sequence, because the sequence is the whole day. The money has to be with your lawyer before anything moves. It goes to the seller's side, the transfer is registered against the title, and only then are the keys released. No step can jump ahead of the one before it, which is why a closing that runs late runs late at the end of the day rather than the start.

You are not in the room for any of it. There is no table, no pen, no handshake with the seller.

When do you actually get the keys?

After the transfer is registered, not at an agreed hour. CMHC puts registration before the handover: your lawyer "registers the home in your name, and then gives you the deed and keys."

Your agreement of purchase and sale names a closing date. It does not name a closing time, and no provincial rule sets one. The keys are released once your lawyer confirms registration has gone through, so movers booked for first thing in the morning often sit and wait. Booking them for the afternoon is the safer call, and that is a judgement about how the day usually runs rather than a rule.

Is there a deadline on closing day?

Yes, and it is five in the afternoon. Registration is only possible inside a set window. Ontario's land registration Bulletin 2012-02, which the province still publishes, states that "Document registration and resubmission of corrected documents will continue to be available during the hours of 8:30 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. local time Monday to Friday excluding Statutory and Government Holidays."

The system enforces that rather than merely advising it. The same bulletin says an attempt outside those hours "will be prevented and the system will display the notification message 'Registration time is outside of normal business hours' or 'Cannot register on a holiday'."

So the real clock on your closing day is not your lawyer's diary. Everything else is arrangement between two law offices. Five o'clock is a wall, and so is a statutory holiday.

What are you signing, and when do you sign it?

Days before closing, and not a paper deed. Under section 21 of the Land Registration Reform Act, "an electronic document is not required to be in writing or to be signed by the parties," and an electronic document that is not written or signed "has the same effect for all purposes as a document that is in writing and is signed by the parties."

Section 20 of the same Act adds that an electronic document submitted for registration "shall be in an electronic format approved by the Director and shall be completed in a manner approved by the Director." Submitting it takes an authorised registrant, which on a house purchase means your lawyer.

That is why your signing appointment sits in the days before closing rather than on the day. What you sign there is the authority for your lawyer to complete and register the electronic documents when the time comes. If you are waiting for a ceremony where a deed crosses a table, there is not one.

When is the land transfer tax paid?

At registration, as part of it. The Ontario Ministry of Finance is direct: "Land transfer tax is payable on every conveyance of land tendered for registration and every unregistered disposition of a beneficial interest in land, unless specifically exempt under the Act or regulations." That wording is on the province's own page on calculating the tax.

This is why the tax sits in the funds your lawyer needs from you before closing, not in a bill that turns up afterwards. On a Toronto property the municipal land transfer tax is collected the same way and comes out of the same transfer, which we cover in how much Toronto land transfer tax is and who pays it.

For most buyers it is the largest single line in the day's costs. The rest of them are set out in our guide to closing costs in Ontario.

What happens if it does not register on the day?

Registration can fail for ordinary reasons. A discharge the seller's lender has not registered yet. A writ turning up against a common name. Funds that arrive after the window has shut. When that happens the two lawyers usually hold the deal between them and register on the next business day.

There is a tax deadline sitting behind that. Ontario's guidance on unregistered dispositions states that section 3 of the Land Transfer Tax Act "does not apply if a conveyance evidencing the disposition is registered and tax is paid pursuant to section 2 within 30 days of the date of disposition." A day or two of delay does not create a second tax problem. A long one can, and that is a question for your lawyer rather than something to leave running.

What should you do in the week before?

Three things, and each of them removes a reason for the day to stall.

Get your money to your lawyer early. CMHC's instruction is that you provide the balance of the purchase price and the closing costs to your lawyer, and funds that clear the morning of closing leave no room for a bank to slow you down.

Take your signing appointment when it is first offered. Everything registered on the day is prepared before it, and a missed appointment moves the whole file.

Ask your lawyer what time they expect to register, then book movers and any elevator time around that answer rather than around the calendar date. A condominium elevator booking that expires at noon, on a file that registers at half past three, is a problem made a week in advance.

If you are still earlier in the process than this, our buying guide walks through the steps that come before the closing date is set.