If you look over an Agreement of Purchase and Sale, most will have a little section called "Title Search" and give a deadline for the purchaser to raise issues relating to title. Some real estate agents like to prepare agreements with a date very close (a week or less) prior to the closing date while others like to give more time (sometimes a month or two). Which approach works best?

It's really hard to say. As the purchaser's solicitor, I'd like to have it closer to the closing date as it allows me a better picture of the state of title. An example that comes to mind occurred when I was purchasing a house for a client. The title search deadline was a month before closing. On the closing date, we conducted our subsearch and found four similar name executions which may have affected the property. Closing had to be postponed for a week until the vendor's solicitor could get the information they needed.

From a vendor's solicitor's perspective, I would prefer to have a much earlier deadline so that I have more time to obtain things like mortgage discharge statements or fix issues surrounding title. An example of this occurred when I had a vendor selling his home with a requisition date three days prior to closing. Title indicated the existence of an old mortgage that had never been removed that existed prior to my client's purchase. Luckily, after two days of chasing down all of the previous lawyers involved on the deal, the discharge was obtained and everything went smoothly.

In an ideal world, I'd always act on sales with earlier deadlines and purchases with closer deadlines. Unfortunately, that isn't going to happen. In my view, most deals would be fine with a 1.5-2 week gap between the title search deadline and the closing date. However, you may wish to have your solicitor go through the agreement with you and help identify any potential issues that may be of concern to you.

However, if you are buying or selling a property, it is important to get everything to your solicitor well in advance of the title search deadline. There is a lot of work to do before that date, and you don't want it to adversely affect your transaction.