LSUC Residential Real Estate Transactions Practice Guidelines and Title Insurance
The Residential Real Estate Transactions Practice Guidelines, adopted by the Law Society of Upper Canada in January, 2007 (the “Practice Guidelines”), provide guidance to lawyers in residential practice in a world where title insurance has become the norm. The Law Society of Upper Canada Real Estate Checklist (first adopted in the 1980s and revised in the mid-1990s) has never been updated to take title insurance into account. The Law Society’s Rules of Professional Conduct contain some mandatory requirements relating to lawyers’ use of title insurance, but these regulatory amendments made in 1997 do not really guide the lawyer aspiring to use title insurance in his/her practice in a positive, client-centred way. The Practice Guidelines thus provide useful insights and recommendations for the practising real estate Bar, given the reality of real estate conveyancing in the new millennium.
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