Designated representation
The BrokerFold Team — Product + Engineering
Last reviewed
Designated representation is one of the two representation models an Ontario brokerage may offer since TRESA’s December 2023 changes took effect. The client still signs with the brokerage, but the agreement names one or more specific licensees — the designated representatives — and only those people represent the client. Every other agent in the office is, legally speaking, a stranger to the relationship: they owe the client honesty, not loyalty.
The problem it solves
Under the older model, now called brokerage representation, a client’s relationship runs to the entire firm — every registrant at the brokerage represents them. That made any in-house deal a conflict by definition: buyer and seller both clients of the same brokerage meant multiple representation, consent forms, and a firm trying to serve two masters. At a five-person boutique that was occasional friction. At a brokerage running hundreds of agents, it happened weekly. Designated representation shrinks the loyalty to named individuals so the rest of the roster stays free to act — one agent can represent the seller, a colleague down the hall the buyer, while the brokerage holds the information walls between them and favours neither.
Where multiple representation still bites
The conflict rules didn’t disappear; they moved. If the same designated representative ends up acting for both sides of a deal, that is designated multiple representation — it requires the informed, written consent of everyone involved, and it strips the agent’s services down, since one person cannot advise a buyer on what to offer and a seller on what to accept. Teams add a wrinkle worth knowing: RECO’s guidance treats members of a single team as too intertwined to act as designated representatives for opposing parties, so the flexibility applies across a brokerage, not within a pod that shares a database and a bonus pool.
Why it matters when you sign
The model in force changes what a buyer representation agreement actually promises: who specifically owes you fiduciary duties, what happens if the listing is in-house, and whose confidences are walled from whom. Brokerages must disclose their model up front, and the mandated information guide walks through it — but the practical question for a client is simply “who, by name, is on my side?” Under designated representation the answer is short, and that is rather the point. The model is Ontario-specific; BC runs its own agency and disclosure regime under BCFSA, with different mechanics for in-house conflicts.
Frequently asked questions
Can two agents at the same brokerage act for buyer and seller?
Under designated representation, yes — each side gets its own designated representative and the brokerage itself stays impartial between them. RECO's guidance draws the line at teammates: members of one team work too closely to credibly sit on opposite sides, however the paperwork reads.
Do clients get to choose between the two models?
Not within one brokerage — the brokerage decides which model it offers, and the representation agreement plus the RECO information guide must make the choice plain. A client who wants the other model is choosing a different brokerage, so it's worth asking before signing anything.
Keep reading
- TRESA TRESA is Ontario's Trust in Real Estate Services Act — the law governing agents and brokerages, whose 2023 phase rewrote representation and offer rules.
- Buyer representation agreement The contract that makes a buyer a client: what a BRA commits both sides to, what to read before signing, and how the BC equivalent differs.
- RECO RECO — the Real Estate Council of Ontario — is the provincial regulator that registers agents and brokerages and enforces TRESA's conduct rules.
- Can two agents on a team represent both sides Ontario's designated representation was built for this, but one team complicates it — and BC treats teammates as one agent. How the rules actually land.