The Three Days After You Sign
Where the right comes from. Section 42 of the Property Law Act and the Home Buyer Rescission Period Regulation, B.C. Reg. 175/2022, give a buyer of residential real property three business days to rescind an accepted contract, for any reason or none. It catches contracts entered into on or after 3 January 2023, and applies whether or not a licensee is involved, so a private sale between neighbours carries it. Neither party can waive it, and a clause saying otherwise does not survive contact with the regulation. B.C. was the first province to bring one in, and on resale purchases still the only one.
What is carved out. The right covers detached and semi-detached houses, townhouses, apartments in duplexes and multi-unit dwellings, residential strata lots, manufactured homes affixed to land, and cooperative interests carrying a right to occupy a dwelling. Four exclusions sit in the regulation, agreed across BCFSA, BCREA and every law-firm summary we checked: residential property located on leased land; a leasehold interest in residential property; a sale by auction; and a sale under court order or court supervision, which removes most foreclosure and estate-driven files. A fifth is the presale, covered by section 21 of the Real Estate Development Marketing Act instead. So a manufactured home affixed to land is covered and the same home on a leased pad is not; a leasehold strata on institutional or First Nations land sits outside the right while looking like any other apartment.
Counting the three days. The clock starts not on the day of acceptance but the day after final acceptance, runs three business days, and expires at 11:59:59 p.m. on the third. Business days exclude Saturdays, Sundays and the Interpretation Act holidays, New Year's Day, Family Day, Good Friday, Easter Monday, Victoria Day, Canada Day, B.C. Day, Labour Day, National Day for Truth and Reconciliation, Remembrance Day, Christmas Day and 26 December. Accept on a Monday clear of holidays and the right dies Thursday at 11:59:59 p.m.; accept on the Friday before the B.C. Day weekend and it runs Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, six calendar days from signature. Where a statutory holiday falls on a weekend, no substitute day is added. On a back-up offer the period runs from acceptance of the back-up, not from the collapse of the first contract.
The fee, in dollars. It is 0.25 per cent of the purchase price set out in the contract, not the list price, not the assessed value, and the parties cannot vary it. On the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board's July 2026 Langley benchmarks, released 5 August 2026, that is $3,752.25 on the $1,500,900 detached benchmark and $2,028.50 on the $811,400 townhouse. On a $3,000,000 sale, $7,500. Where a brokerage holds a deposit the fee comes out of it: the brokerage pays the seller without a signed release from either party and returns the balance promptly. On a five per cent deposit that is a haircut, not a second cheque. Where no deposit is held, or the deposit is smaller than the fee, the buyer owes the seller directly; law-firm summaries put the outside deadline at fourteen days. If the buyer refuses, BCFSA tells sellers to seek legal advice on recovery, which tells you what enforcement looks like.
Serving the notice, and getting it wrong. The notice must be written and must carry the address, parcel identifier or description, the buyer's name and signature, the names of all sellers on the contract, and the date the right is exercised. It is served one of three prescribed ways, each to the seller's details as set out in the contract: registered mail, fax, or email with a read receipt requested. A licensee may serve it for the buyer, and where several buyers are named, any one may rescind for all. The right is deemed exercised on the date of service. A text to the listing agent, a call, an email to an address not in the contract, or a perfect notice served at 12:01 a.m. on day four is not a rescission, it is a repudiation, and the deposit stops being the ceiling on what it costs.
Why sophisticated buyers still write subjects. The three days do not get you inside. Access may be dealt with in the contract, and a subject-to-inspection clause binds the seller, but there is no automatic right of entry. Nor do three business days absorb a lender's appraisal, a full strata document review, a title search or a tank scan. BCFSA's July 2025 summary report records 216 rescissions across the province for all of calendar 2024, an average fee of $3,060 and an average of three days to rescind; the year before, 231 reported for 2023, 41 of them from the Fraser Valley board. In the same 2025 data call, 11 per cent of reported residential transactions were unconditional. Nine offers in ten still carry subjects.
The honest strategic reading. In multiple offers some buyers use the three days deliberately: write clean to win, then treat the window as a priced option on a fast look and a lender's nod, at 0.25 per cent for the exit. It works, occasionally, and we have seen it work. It also hands the risk back to the seller, who knows the contract is not truly firm for three business days and prices that in, preferring a proven buyer to the marginally higher bid, demanding a deposit large enough that walking away is uncomfortable, keeping the listing active until the window shuts. Anyone selling you the rescission period as a free look has not sat on the other side of the table.
The other cooling-off right, which is not this one. Presales run a separate and longer clock. Section 21 of the Real Estate Development Marketing Act gives the purchaser of a development unit seven days. They are calendar days, not business days, and they run from the later of the date the purchase agreement was entered into and the date the developer obtained a written acknowledgement that the purchaser had an opportunity to read the disclosure statement, so a late disclosure statement restarts the useful clock. There is no fee: the deposit comes back in full, within fifteen days of the developer receiving notice. Where a required disclosure statement was never delivered, BCFSA describes rescission rights running as far as one year after title transfers. Seven days at no cost on a presale; three business days at 0.25 per cent on a resale.
Sourced from BCFSA's Home Buyer Rescission Period guideline, consumer guide, frequently asked questions and presales information; BCFSA's Real Estate Brokerage Data Call and HBRP Reporting summary reports of August 2024 and July 2025; the British Columbia Real Estate Association's HBRP calculators; the Province of British Columbia news release of 3 January 2023; the Fraser Valley Real Estate Board's July 2026 statistics package released 5 August 2026; and summaries of B.C. Reg. 175/2022 by Aird & Berlis, Boughton Law, McQuarrie and Lawson Lundell, all verified 25 August 2026. This report describes and informs; it is not legal advice, and a specific contract, a specific exclusion and a specific deadline deserve specific verification by a lawyer or notary. Want the exact rescission expiry date and dollar figure calculated on your contract before you sign it?