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Guide · Making a complaint

How to complain to RECO

Every decision in our register began as somebody's complaint. Here is what the regulator can actually do, what makes a complaint investigable, and what to expect once you send one.

What RECO can do

  • Investigate whether a registrant breached the Code of Ethics or the Act.
  • Refer the matter to its Discipline Committee, which can impose fines and mandatory education, and publish the decision with the registrant's name.
  • Act against the brokerage as well as the individual.
  • In serious cases, move to suspend or revoke a registration, or lay provincial charges.

What RECO cannot do

  • Get your money back. Discipline fines are paid to RECO, not to you. Compensation is a matter for a lawyer, small claims court, or the brokerage's insurer.
  • Cancel your contract or force a deal to close or collapse.
  • Act against someone who is not registered. Different route, and worth knowing: using an unregistered person to serve clients is itself a breach, as the Anna Alex record shows.

If money is the point, speak to a lawyer promptly. Limitation periods in Ontario are short, and a regulatory complaint does not pause them.

How to make a complaint that gets somewhere

Complaints are made to RECO directly, through the complaints section of reco.on.ca. What separates a complaint that becomes an investigation from one that does not is usually specificity.

  1. Name the registrant and the brokerage exactly as they appear in RECO's register, not as they appear on a business card.
  2. Give dates. A timeline of what happened, in order, beats any amount of description.
  3. Say which duty you think was broken, in ordinary words: they did not tell me, they were not there, they signed for me, they pushed me to waive a condition. Our nine questions map to the common ones.
  4. Attach the documents you already have: the representation agreement, the offer, texts and emails, the listing page. Keep the originals.
  5. Stick to what you witnessed. Speculation about motive weakens an otherwise strong complaint.

What happens next

RECO reviews the complaint, and may resolve it informally, issue a warning, or refer it for a discipline proceeding. Most referred matters end in an agreed statement of facts: the registrant admits the facts with legal advice, agrees a penalty, and waives the hearing. A minority are contested and heard, and a few of those are appealed.

It is slow. In the Mustafa Zia record, the conduct was in March 2017 and the decision was released in February 2022. Decisions are published for at least 60 months afterwards.

When it becomes public

Published decisions name the registrant. They anonymise the complainant, the properties and other parties, which is why our records refer to “Buyer A” or “City A”. If your complaint results in a decision, your name will not be in it.

We cannot take your complaint.

This site publishes decisions that regulators have already made. We do not investigate, and we do not publish allegations. If you send us your story we will not put it online, because we cannot verify it. RECO can. See our editorial policy.