Selling a House From an Estate in Ontario: What Executors Need to Know

A plain-language guide for Estate Trustees navigating probate, taxes, and the sale of a loved one's home.

By Sheldon Kiestin — Real Estate Broker, Sutton Group Admiral Realty Inc.

If you've just been named Estate Trustee for someone who owned a home in Ontario, you're probably grieving and holding a to-do list at the same time. That's a hard combination. This guide walks through the legal and financial steps between "I'm now in charge" and "the house is sold and the money is distributed" — in order, without the jargon.

Step 1: Secure the Property — This Week, Not Next Month

Before anything else, protect the asset. Change the locks. Then call the insurance company and tell them the owner has died and the home is now vacant.

This matters because most standard homeowner policies stop covering a vacant property after 30 days. If a pipe bursts or someone breaks in after that window and there's no vacancy rider in place, the estate could be left holding the loss. Get a vacancy permit or rider immediately — this is the one step with a hard, unforgiving clock attached to it from day one.

Step 2: Apply for Probate

To legally sell the house or access the deceased's accounts, the Trustee typically needs a Certificate of Appointment of Estate Trustee from the Superior Court of Justice — commonly called probate. It's the court's proof that you have the authority to act.

Set expectations early: this can take a year or longer, depending on the court's backlog and whether the will (if there is one) is contested. Buyers, real estate agents, and beneficiaries all need to understand this timeline up front.

Step 3: Check Whether You Can Skip Probate

Not every property needs to wait for a certificate. Common exceptions include:

• Joint ownership with right of survivorship — the property passes directly to the surviving owner.
• The "first dealings" exemption, which can apply in specific land registry situations.
• Assets with a named beneficiary, such as a TFSA or life insurance policy, which bypass the estate entirely.

A lawyer can confirm which of these, if any, apply — this is worth a paid hour early on, since it can save months.

Step 4: List and Sell — With a Probate Clause

The Trustee can list the home before probate comes through. The listing itself isn't the problem; closing is. The purchase agreement needs a Probate Clause that makes closing conditional on the certificate being granted. This lets marketing and showings proceed in parallel with the court process instead of waiting on it.

Also get a professional appraisal dated as close as possible to the date of death. That value becomes the baseline for two separate tax calculations later, so it needs to be defensible.

Step 5: Pay the Estate Administration Tax

Ontario charges the Estate Administration Tax (EAT) — sometimes still called "probate fees" — based on the total value of the estate, paid when the probate application is filed.

Rough math: a $700,000 estate with no mortgage owes roughly $9,750. A mortgage reduces the taxable value of the real property, so it's worth confirming the payout balance before filing.

Step 6: Handle the "Deemed Sale" Income Tax Hit

Separately from the EAT, the CRA treats death as a deemed disposition — as if the deceased sold everything, including the house, at fair market value on the date of death. Whatever the property is worth at that moment becomes its new cost base.

If the estate later sells the house for more than that date-of-death value, the difference is a taxable capital gain for the estate. If the property qualifies as the deceased's principal residence, some exemptions can reduce or eliminate this gain — but the "plus one" year rule that individual taxpayers get doesn't extend to estates. This is a common point of confusion worth flagging clearly to beneficiaries.

Step 7: File the Estate Information Return

Within 180 days of receiving probate, the Trustee must file an Estate Information Return (EIR) with the Ontario Ministry of Finance — a detailed inventory of the estate's assets and their values. If an error or a previously unknown asset turns up later, an amendment is due within 30 days of discovering it.

Miss the 180-day window, and the province's window to audit the estate no longer expires after four years — it stays open indefinitely. That alone is reason to treat this deadline as non-negotiable.

Step 8: Get Tax Clearance Before Paying Anyone Out

This is the step that protects the Trustee personally. Before distributing a dollar to beneficiaries, get:

1. A CRA Clearance Certificate (Form TX19), confirming all federal and income taxes owed by the deceased and the estate are paid, and
2. A Comfort Letter from the Ontario Ministry of Finance covering provincial estate tax matters.

Only after both are in hand should the Trustee finalize accounting and distribute what's left. Skipping this step is the single most common way Trustees end up personally liable for a deceased person's unpaid debts and taxes — even when the estate itself has no money left to cover them.

Quick Reference: The Estate Administration Tax

Estate Value Component	Tax Rate / Requirement
First $50,000	$0 (Exempt)
Amount Exceeding $50,000	$15 per $1,000 (or part thereof)
Rounding Rule	Value rounded up to the nearest $1,000
Deductible Encumbrances	Mortgages on real property only

The Bottom Line

Selling an estate property in Ontario isn't just a real estate transaction — it's a sequence of legal and tax obligations that happen to end with a sale. The Trustees who get through it with the least stress are the ones who secure the property immediately, get ahead of the probate timeline, and treat the final clearance certificate as a hard stop before any money moves. When in doubt, an estates lawyer and an accountant familiar with T3 trust returns are worth the fee — the personal liability exposure for a Trustee who skips a step is real.

As a broker who works with executors through this process regularly, I can tell you the sale itself is rarely the hard part — timing it correctly around probate and the estate's obligations is. If you've been named Estate Trustee and you're weighing when to list, how to structure the offer around a Probate Clause, or simply want a realistic read on what the property is worth before you commit to a plan, I'm glad to walk through it with you. There's no cost and no pressure to a first conversation.

Call or text Sheldon Kiestin at 416-809-0221 to talk through your estate sale, or reach out through Sutton Group Admiral Realty Inc. Let's make sure the sale is one less thing you have to figure out alone.