The Buyer Representation Agreement (BRA) is a document which outlines the relationship between a potential home buyer and the real estate Brokerage. It is required by law, as governed by The Real Estate Council of Ontario, to commit the agreement to writing between the Buyer and Brokerage.
There are many benefits to signing a BRA with your REALTOR® which is outlined here: www.brafirst.ca
Here are the nitty gritty details
It obligates you to work with a specific Real Estate Brokerage when searching for properties in a specific Geographic area and for a specific length of time
Note that in recent court cases, the courts have decided that a geographic area must be relatively localized, as it is unreasonable for a REALTOR to serve the entire province. If the Agreement is valid for longer than 6 months, the Buyer must make an additional acknowledgement to what they are agreeing to.
It Sets out the commission rate in which the brokerage is to be compensated for representing your interests.
Not that if the BRA has an agreed commission rate of 2.5% and a Seller is only offering to pay the brokerage 2%, then the 0.5% difference will need to be paid by the Buyer to the Brokerage to total the agreed upon 2.5%. However, the agreed upon commission rate is always negotiable.
Outlines the ‘Holdover’ period.
The holdover clause is the brokerages way of protecting their efforts and ensuring that they have a claim to being paid a commission rate if you buy a property, which you were introduced to by your Real Estate representative, after the BRA expires.
For more on the BRA,…