What CASL Requires for Realtor Lead Outreach in Canada

The law behind the rules

CASL is the short name for Canada's Anti-Spam Legislation, an Act of Parliament (S.C. 2010, c. 23). Section 6 bars sending a commercial electronic message without consent, identification and an unsubscribe mechanism. Section 10 sets what a request for consent must contain, and section 13 puts the burden of proving consent on the sender. The CRTC enforces the Act and has its own Electronic Commerce Protection Regulations.

The time limits in the table apply to implied consent only: six months after an inquiry and two years after a purchase or other transaction. Express consent, written or oral, lasts until the person withdraws it, but the brokerage must be able to prove an oral agreement.

Two further timing rules matter in practice. The unsubscribe mechanism must keep working for at least 60 days after the message is sent, and the sender's contact information must stay valid for the same 60 days.

A listing request is not a broad invitation

An inquiry about one property supports implied consent for six months, and the reply should address that request.

A form requesting contact about one listing does not establish express consent for an ongoing series of unrelated promotions. The original purpose is the practical limit when deciding what follow-up fits the lead's request.

Keep a copy of the inquiry and the listing or purpose it concerned, so an agent can compare a proposed message with what the person asked to receive. A listing advertising review can help preserve that connection when a lead moves from an enquiry to a marketing sequence.

Let the closing date set the boundary

After a completed transaction, implied consent lasts two years from the last deal. That relationship period is not an open-ended permission to send marketing. For a realtor, the useful operational step is to make the transaction date visible wherever the contact is queued for future outreach.

Record the date and the basis for classifying the contact, then check the planned message against that basis before sending. Contact history helps with timing, but it does not prove express agreement. A busy-agent follow-up system can connect the consent decision to the sequence used in practice.

Give written permission a defined purpose

Written express consent can support messages until withdrawn, provided the agreement identifies its purpose. For realtor outreach, the wording should name the brokerage, explain the purpose and channels, and make clear that the person may withdraw consent. The scope should remain visible when a campaign is assembled.

Save the wording the lead saw, along with its date and source, rather than relying on a database label alone. Before adding a person to a sequence, compare its planned content with the accepted purpose. Treat consent language as part of campaign setup, as in this email program design approach.

Make an oral agreement reconstructable

Oral express consent is valid under CASL, but the brokerage carries the burden of proving it, so confirming it in writing soon after the call is the safer practice. A note that records only that a person agreed leaves the brokerage unable to establish when the agreement happened or what purpose and channels the lead accepted. Those details matter when a later message is questioned.

Keep the date, source and exact wording, or a reliable record of what was agreed. Where possible, send a short written confirmation of what was agreed. A lead-generation checklist can help connect the permission recorded for a person to the outreach being considered.

Match the message to the channel

CASL applies to commercial electronic messages, including commercial email, texts and direct messages sent to a lead by a Canadian realtor. Covered messages must identify the sender and represented business, give a mailing address and a phone number, email address or web address, and include a clear, easy-to-use unsubscribe mechanism.

Headers, subject lines and sender names must not mislead recipients. The deceptive marketing practices reference offers a separate check on campaign claims. Voice calls are outside CASL but subject to the CRTC's Unsolicited Telecommunications Rules and the National Do Not Call List, which a telemarketer must check before calling a number; changing channels changes the applicable rules, not the need for care. See also Canadian email questions.

Carry an opt-out across the whole sequence

An unsubscribe request must be honoured within 10 business days, and its record kept with the lead. The process should work without requiring a login. A reply-with-a-stop-word option is ineffective if nobody monitors the response and applies it to the systems sending later messages.

A lead may ask to stop while several automated contacts are already scheduled. If a list tag is wrong or updates do not reach every sequence, further emails or texts may follow the request. The operational gap is the issue to test; these conversion repair points can help identify where a stop request fails to travel.

Keep evidence with the individual contact

Retain proof of consent, unsubscribe requests and complaints. CASL sets no retention period, but three years is a sensible minimum because it matches the limit for starting CASL violation proceedings. For consent, preserve its date and source as well as the exact wording shown to the lead. A general note that someone agreed by phone does not replace a record showing what was agreed and when.

Keep the material together so the brokerage can reconstruct the consent basis, the language presented and any later complaint or withdrawal. Private-sector privacy guidance addresses collection, use and disclosure. A campaign review checklist can help organize the review.

Keep records attached to the lead rather than scattered across campaign notes. The file should let the brokerage reconstruct the basis for contact, the wording presented and any later change in consent. It also helps reveal whether an automated sequence continued after someone opted out.

Adapt the process to the province

Quebec adds privacy and language requirements to the federal framework. Its privacy law, overhauled by Law 25, formerly Bill 64, expects a named person responsible for personal information. Language rules also affect commercial messages sent into the province under the Charter of the French Language, as amended by Bill 96, and federal law does not override those requirements.

Alberta and British Columbia each have a private-sector privacy statute titled the Personal Information Protection Act. Boards, listing systems and provincial statutes differ, so one provincial approach should not be assumed to settle every question nationally. Use lead-generation best practices when adapting messages for different locations.

Incomplete evidence creates avoidable exposure

A CRTC notice of violation can identify a business in a published enforcement decision, and a brokerage may be asked to produce its consent records. An agent's recollection of a phone conversation is not a substitute for a dated record showing the agreement and its source.

CASL sets maximum administrative monetary penalties of $1 million for an individual and $10 million for a business, assessed per violation. The number of messages and seriousness of the breach affect the scale, while published settlements are usually lower. Missing records can disrupt follow-up and affect lead conversion rates.