Policy development · Commerce & industry
Privacy & Security Policy Development for Real Estate Brokerages
We write the policy set a brokerage can actually operate: a public privacy policy that explains FINTRAC ID collection honestly, a retention schedule that reconciles the five-year federal clock with six-year trade-record rules, and device and email terms that survive contact with independent contractors. The work usually starts when an examiner, franchisor or web redesign exposes that the current policy was copied from a template that has never heard of a receipt-of-funds record.
Reviewed by the Privacy Horizon team · Last reviewed
What you're protecting
Policy questions unique to running a brokerage
Off-the-shelf privacy policies collapse here because the law compels collection most businesses never do, and the people doing the collecting are not employees.
Explaining mandatory ID collection
Clients deserve a truthful account of why the brokerage photographs licences and passports, what the PCMLTFA requires, who can see the copies and when they are destroyed.
Two retention regimes on one file
A deal file contains records governed by FINTRAC's five-year rule and, in Ontario, trade records held six years under O. Reg. 579/05, so the schedule must be written by record type rather than by folder.
Rules agents will actually follow
Device, email and document-handling terms have to work within the independent-contractor relationship: enforceable through the agent agreement and onboarding, practical enough that nobody routes around them.
Showing data, feedback and offers
Policy must draw disclosure lines around showing feedback, competing-offer information and multiple representation, the places where one client's data bleeds into another's file daily.
Marketing, farming and CASL
Clear internal rules for CRM imports, neighbourhood farming lists and past-client campaigns keep the brokerage's electronic messages inside consent requirements.
Regulatory map
The regulatory writing brief for brokerage policies
Each document in the set answers to a specific legal source, which is why we draft from the statutes and regulator guidance rather than a generic framework.
PCMLTFA program documentation
FINTRAC expects written compliance policies covering identification, record-keeping and reporting; the privacy suite must dovetail with them so the two programs describe the same practices.
The October 2025 identification changes
Policies and procedures need updating for the new duty to verify and keep information records on unrepresented parties, and for the revised agent and mandatary identification rules.
PIPEDA openness and consent
The public policy must describe purposes, sharing and safeguards accurately, and internal procedures must support access requests and withdrawal of consent where the law permits it.
RECO's record-retention position
Ontario brokerages need destruction language that respects the six-year trade-record floor and the one-year rule for unaccepted offers before anything is shredded or purged.
Law 25 policy requirements
Quebec offices require published governance policies, a named person in charge and confidentiality-incident procedures, drafted in terms the CAI would recognize.
What goes wrong
What weak policy costs a brokerage
Policy failures here are not abstract compliance debt; they translate directly into fraud exposure and regulator findings.
Indefinite hoarding of identity documents
Without a destruction trigger, ID copies pile up for decades, so any future ransomware event exposes ten times the individuals the law ever required you to hold.
Agents inventing their own practices
Absent clear terms, registrants text licence photos, store agreements in personal Gmail and keep client lists when they leave, and the brokerage answers for all of it.
A public policy that contradicts reality
Promising practices you do not follow is worse than silence in a complaint investigation, and template language about cookies rarely mentions trust deposits or board data feeds.
Destruction that breaks retention law
An office purging files at year five to reduce risk can walk straight through the six-year Ontario floor, converting good intentions into a regulatory problem.
Campaigns built on stale consent
CRM audiences assembled from old open-house sheets and expired relationships accumulate CASL exposure with every automated drip that goes out.
Our policy development for real estate brokerages
The document set we deliver to brokerages
Deliverables are drafted around your provinces, platforms and franchise context, in language a busy administrator and a skeptical agent can both use.
Public-facing privacy policy
For the brokerage site and agent or team sites, covering FINTRAC collection, deal documentation, sharing with boards and vendors, cross-border hosting, and how to reach your privacy contact.
Internal handling procedures
Practical rules for collecting ID at listing and offer stages, transmitting documents without personal email, storing files in brokerage systems and responding to client requests.
Retention and destruction schedule
A record-type table mapping each document class to its governing clock, with destruction methods and an annual purge routine the office can genuinely run.
Agent privacy and security terms
A schedule for the independent-contractor agreement setting minimum device, email, MLS-credential and data-return expectations, aligned with what boards and insurers ask of you.
Update and maintenance support
Revision when rules move, as they did with the unrepresented-party changes, so the documents track the law instead of freezing at their publication date.
How the engagement runs
How we draft policies with a brokerage
The method is read, interview, draft, pressure-test, so the finished set describes your operation rather than an idealized one.
Step 1
Collect what exists
Current policies, the AML program manual, agent agreement, vendor list and website copy come in first, along with samples of how deal files are actually assembled.
Step 2
Interview the operators
Short sessions with the administrator, compliance officer and a couple of working agents surface the real flows, including the workarounds nobody documents.
Step 3
Draft against your obligations
We write the suite mapped to your provinces and systems, flagging every place current practice conflicts with the law so you can choose to change practice or accept the fix.
Step 4
Review, adopt and roll out
One consolidated review round with the broker of record, then rollout materials: a sales-meeting briefing, a one-page agent summary and the website update.
What it costs
Pricing drivers for brokerage policy work
Scope determines effort: how many documents you need, how many provinces the brokerage spans, whether Quebec's requirements are in play, whether the agent agreement is being amended alongside, and the condition of the existing AML documentation we must align with. A refresh of a decent foundation costs less than building from a template graveyard.
We quote fixed fees per document set after reviewing what you have. Brokerages wanting policy work bundled with ongoing advice often route it through a Virtual Privacy Office retainer instead, where drafting and review are part of the monthly service.
Real Estate Brokerages: Policy development questions, answered
It should state plainly that federal anti-money-laundering law requires the brokerage to verify identity and keep prescribed records, including identification details and receipt-of-funds records, for at least five years; describe how the copies are stored and who may access them; and explain that clients cannot opt out of legally required collection. It should also point to the destruction schedule so the promise of eventual disposal is real. Vague lines about collecting information to serve you better do not survive an examiner or an informed client.
You cannot manage agents like staff, but you can make specific practices a condition of the contractual relationship: brokerage-approved email for transaction documents, MFA on accounts touching brokerage systems, a screen lock and current OS on any device holding client files, no ID images retained in personal storage, and return or deletion of client data on departure. Enforcement runs through the agent agreement, onboarding and MLS or platform access rather than device management software, and the terms must be short enough to be followed.
One organized by record class, not by drawer. FINTRAC records, such as information records, copies used for identification and receipt-of-funds records, carry a five-year minimum. Ontario trade records carry at least six years after completion, with unaccepted offers held one year. Employment, payroll and commission records follow their own rules. A defensible schedule states each class, its clock, its trigger event, its destruction method, and who signs off, and the office actually executes it annually rather than aspirationally.
Usually one suite with provincial riders. The core practices, safeguards and FINTRAC obligations are national, so the base documents stay common; province-specific pages then cover what differs, such as Alberta's notification standard, BC's voluntary reporting posture, Ontario's trade-record rules and Quebec's Law 25 apparatus. That structure keeps training simple for a workforce that moves between offices while still giving each regulator language written for its regime.
If a team site collects leads or documents in connection with trades through your brokerage, the brokerage's accountability follows the data, whatever the site's footer claims. The clean solution is a standard privacy notice your agents must use on team and personal sites, pointing to the brokerage as the accountable organization, plus terms in the agent agreement about where captured leads and documents must be stored. We draft both pieces so the sprawl of agent web properties stops generating orphaned policies.
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