How to check any Ontario real-estate agent

Step 1: confirm they are registered

Go to RECO’s registrant search and type the name exactly as it appears on the agent’s business card. Registrants sometimes trade under a shortened name; the register uses the legal one. The Mustafa Zia decision, for example, is styled against “Mohammed Mustafa Zia (aka Mustafa Zia)”, so both spellings are worth trying.

A result shows the registration category (salesperson, broker, broker of record), the brokerage they are registered with, and the registration status. If the person is not there, they are not allowed to trade in real estate in Ontario, full stop.

Step 2: read the conditions and history

The entry may list conditions on registration and links to discipline decisions or other regulatory actions. Read anything that appears. A decision reached by agreed statement, like Zia’s, is still a decision: the registrant accepted the facts.

Step 3: search the decisions directly

RECO publishes Discipline and Appeals Committee decisions on reco.on.ca. Search the name there as well, because the registrant record does not always cross-link older matters. Decisions from before 1 December 2023 are under REBBA 2002; later ones under TRESA. The structure is the same: findings, order, agreed facts, Code sections. Our guide on reading a decision walks through one.

Step 4: search the wider web, carefully

Search the full name with “RECO”, “discipline” and “decision”. Ignore review sites that only carry star ratings; look for the regulator’s document or a full transcription of it, such as ours. Treat anonymous forum posts as leads to verify, not as facts.

Step 5: check the brokerage too

Brokerages are registrants as well and can be disciplined. A salesperson’s conduct that causes the brokerage to break the rules is a breach for both, which is exactly what section 2(1) of the old Code did in the Zia case.