E-signatures for real estate deals in Canada

The short answer

In most provinces, yes: an agreement of purchase and sale can be signed electronically, but each province sets its own conditions. Ontario’s Electronic Commerce Act has applied to agreements of purchase and sale since July 1, 2015, British Columbia’s regulator says electronic contracts of purchase and sale can be enforceable, regulators in Quebec and Saskatchewan have their own rules for e-signed real estate documents, and Manitoba’s real estate law has allowed electronic offers to purchase since 2022. Documents that must be registered to transfer an interest in land often follow separate rules, and where we could not verify a province’s position, check with your regulator.

Checked October 14, 2026Lire ce guide en français

The general rule

E-signatures count. A legal requirement for a signature can be met by an electronic signature under Ontario’s Electronic Commerce Act, 2000 (section 11), British Columbia’s Electronic Transactions Act (section 11) and Alberta’s Electronic Transactions Act (section 16). In Quebec, a signature on a technology-based document can be set up against the signer if the document’s integrity is ensured and the link between the signature and the document has been kept since signing (Act to establish a legal framework for information technology, section 39).
Consent is needed. In Ontario, British Columbia and Alberta, no one has to use or accept electronic documents without their consent.
Registered land documents are often left out. British Columbia’s and Alberta’s laws do not apply to documents that create or transfer interests in land and need registration to be effective against third parties. Ontario had a similar exclusion that named agreements of purchase and sale; it was repealed on July 1, 2015.

Province by province

Province by province
Province	Can the purchase agreement be signed electronically?	What to watch
Ontario	Yes. Since July 1, 2015, the Electronic Commerce Act no longer excludes documents, including agreements of purchase and sale, that create or transfer interests in land.	Laws that expressly regulate electronic documents still apply (section 26). We found no guidance from RECO, Ontario’s real estate regulator, specific to e-signatures; ask RECO if you are unsure.
Quebec	Yes. The OACIQ says any type of document may be signed electronically, including brokerage contracts.	See the Quebec section below: authorization from your agency executive officer, a certified system or one that meets the OACIQ’s technical specifications, and limits on mixing paper and electronic signatures.
British Columbia	Yes. BCFSA says electronic agreements and signatures written on a tablet can create enforceable service agreements and contracts of purchase and sale, as long as the essential elements of a contract are in place.	An email that shows the sender’s name is not a substitute for a signature. A brokerage must keep its records in British Columbia; if the server is outside the province, BCFSA says to keep at least a paper or electronic (PDF) copy in British Columbia.
Alberta	Check with RECA, Alberta’s real estate regulator. The Electronic Transactions Act lets an electronic signature meet a signing requirement, but it does not apply to records that create or transfer interests in land that need registration to be effective against third parties. We could not find current RECA guidance on e-signed purchase contracts.	Ask RECA how these rules apply to your forms.
Saskatchewan	Yes, if the signature meets Bylaw 625 of the Saskatchewan Real Estate Commission: created by hand, typed or drawn, digitized and embedded permanently in the document, with a record from the software provider certifying when, where and by whom it was signed.	Where a witness is required, consent to e-signing must be established when the registrant is retained, and the software must, among other things, keep detailed logs, prevent changes to signed content and stop signatures from being moved or removed. Bylaw 620 allows records to be kept in electronic form only under conditions, including that they be located in a physical premise accessible by the broker in Saskatchewan.
Manitoba	Yes. The Manitoba Securities Commission said The Real Estate Services Act, in force since January 1, 2022, allows electronic agreements, including offers to purchase, and digital signatures.	Check the Commission’s current requirements for your forms.
Other provinces and the territories	Not verified.	Check with your regulator.

British Columbia: records

The Real Estate Services Act requires a brokerage to keep proper books, accounts and other records, and to keep them in British Columbia (section 25).
BCFSA says that requirement is not met when records are stored outside the province and accessed remotely; at a minimum, a paper copy or an electronic version, such as PDF files, must be kept in British Columbia and available for inspection.
The Real Estate Services Rules allow records to be kept electronically if they can readily be printed, require a brokerage to print them promptly on request, and require most records to be kept for at least 7 years (sections 91 and 92).

Quebec: what the OACIQ expects

The Organisme d’autoréglementation du courtage immobilier du Québec (OACIQ) supervises real estate brokers in Quebec.

Ask first. A broker must get the agency executive officer’s authorization before using an electronic signature system.
Certified systems. Using a system the OACIQ has accredited is not mandatory, but the OACIQ strongly recommends it and discourages other systems. A broker who chooses another system must make sure it meets all the OACIQ’s technical specifications.
The technical specifications (version of 10 July 2025) ask, among other things, for identity checks that combine at least two methods, with government photo ID preferred; a tamper-proof digital seal from a public key infrastructure (the system of digital certificates behind digital signatures), or proof that another process guarantees authenticity; a certificate of completion with the signer’s consent, signature image, timestamps and IP address; an audit trail available to all participants; and English and French interfaces with consent wording shown before signing.
Hosting. The OACIQ prefers hosting in Quebec and Canada, and notes that the law requires a privacy impact assessment when information is communicated and stored outside Quebec.
Mixed signing. One party may sign on paper and the other electronically, but an exclusive brokerage contract to sell or buy a chiefly residential immovable with fewer than 5 dwellings cannot be signed that way, because the client must receive a duplicate.
Keep the electronic original. Do not print and re-scan an electronically signed form: once printed, its signatures can no longer be validated. Keep the authentication certificate, and do not destroy the electronic documents before the 6 years set by law.
Good practice. Use a second way to confirm the signer’s identity, such as a password sent by text message or questions agreed in advance; add a field for the place of signing; and check the time zone shown, since a signing time in GMT can differ from local time when you check an acceptance deadline.
Promise to purchase. Even when it is signed electronically, the broker must still tell the buyer right away whether the promise was accepted or refused, and keep written proof.
Not as a witness. A broker cannot sign as witness to a client’s electronic signature when the client signs from an invitation, since the broker is not present.
Language. Quebec’s Charter of the French Language requires a promise to purchase, and the contract of sale, for a chiefly residential immovable with fewer than five dwellings, or a fraction of such a building held in co-ownership, to be drawn up in French, unless the parties expressly wish to use only another language (section 55.1). See our guide on signing in French.

Before you send

Confirm your regulator’s rules and your brokerage’s policy.
Get every party’s consent to sign electronically.
Add a second identity check when the stakes justify it.
Fill in the date, time and place fields your forms ask for, and check the time zone on the certificate.
Never sign for a client. In August 2024, BCFSA suspended a licensee for six months for forging two homeowners’ signatures on documents submitted to a city.
Keep the electronic original and its certificate, not just a printout.
Keep record copies where your rules require them.
Check separately how documents to be registered against title must be signed.

How Maple eSign fits

Cost and access: Maple eSign is free to use. Accounts are set up on request today; there is no self-serve sign-up yet.
Where it runs: Maple eSign is Canadian-owned and operated by Scrawlr Development Inc. in Vancouver, BC. The application, database, document storage and database backups run in Google Cloud’s Montreal region. Emails are sent through Postmark, a US service.
Your forms: reusable templates, sequential or parallel routing for buyers and sellers, reminders and expiry dates. You can correct an agreement after sending it, or reassign it.
Signing: typed, drawn or uploaded signatures; signer access codes, set by the sender and shared with the signer, as an extra check before the document opens; text fields for details such as the place of signing; conditional fields; and signer attachments.
Language: signing pages, consent wording and recipient emails in English and French (Canada).
Evidence: a sealed PDF with a Certificate of Completion and a recorded SHA-256 hash (a digital fingerprint of the file), plus an append-only, hash-chained audit trail.
Volume and systems: CSV bulk send, a REST API, a typed SDK and signed webhooks.
Limits to know: Maple eSign is not certified by the OACIQ and holds no third-party security certification, so Quebec brokers should check the OACIQ’s certified list and technical specifications first. Because documents are stored in Montreal, brokerages in British Columbia and Saskatchewan should keep the record copies their own rules require.

Sources

Official texts and regulators’ own pages, except the sources marked as an industry publication or a provider’s own page.