An unrepresented buyer walks into your open house, likes the place, and asks what they should offer. The decent human answer and the correct professional answer are opposites. You are prohibited from telling them. Not discouraged. RECO's wording is that agents are prohibited from providing services, opinions or advice to a self-represented party in respect of a trade, and it names price, terms, and which clauses to include as examples.
This is the obligation most likely to be breached by someone acting in good faith, because the breach looks like courtesy. Below is what RECO's Bulletin 2.4 and Bulletin 2.6 actually require, read on September 19, 2026.
There is no such thing as a customer any more
If you still think in terms of client and customer, the second half of that pair has been gone for years and the dates are specific.
| Date | What happened |
|---|---|
| December 1, 2023 | Brokerages could no longer enter new customer agreements. Existing ones could not be amended, including by extension. |
| March 30, 2024 | Every customer agreement still in effect automatically expired. |
TRESA leaves exactly two states a person can be in: a client of a brokerage, or a self-represented party. There is no middle tier where someone gets a bit of help without a representation agreement. If a former customer wants continued service, the route is a representation agreement and they become a client.
That is the whole design. The middle tier was where the confusion lived, so it was removed rather than clarified.
Two documents, before you help at all
When you are dealing with someone who is or intends to be self-represented, two things go across before any assistance:
- the RECO Information and Disclosure to Self-represented Party form
- the RECO Information Guide
Both before, not alongside and not afterwards. You then make best efforts to obtain an acknowledgement that the information was received, and you give them a copy of it.
The first step is smaller and gets skipped: verify that the person is, or intends to be, self-represented. Someone browsing an open house on a Sunday may already have an agent. Asking is not an imposition, it is the thing that tells you which set of obligations you are under.
The four things you have to say out loud
RECO sets out the messages that have to be conveyed, and they are blunter than most agents would phrase them unprompted:
- I am representing my client and my client's best interests.
- I do not represent you or your best interests.
- I cannot provide you with any services, opinions, or advice.
- Anything you tell me will be disclosed to my client.
That last one is the one people soften, and it is the one with the sharpest edge for the other person. If an unrepresented buyer tells you what they would really go up to, that is not a confidence. It goes to your seller, because your seller is who you act for. Saying so in advance is the whole point of the disclosure.
What you may not do
The prohibition covers services, opinions and advice in respect of a trade. RECO names the obvious three:
- Price. Not a number, not a range, not "I wouldn't go below asking".
- Terms. Not a closing date, not a deposit amount.
- Clauses. Not which conditions to include, not which to drop to look competitive.
The trap is that all three are things a well-meaning agent volunteers without being asked, usually to move a deal along. Advising an unrepresented buyer to drop their financing condition, so their offer competes, is advice on a clause. That it also happens to serve your seller does not make it permitted.
What you may still do
There is room, and it is narrower than it sounds. Assistance is allowed only where it is all of these at once: a service to your client, incidental to the services you are providing your client, in your client's best interests, and consistent with your client's instructions.
Read that as a test, not a permission. Handing over a blank form so an offer can physically exist is plausibly incidental to serving your seller. Filling it in for them, or telling them what to put in it, is not - that is advice, and the fact that it is also convenient for your client is what the test is meant to catch rather than excuse.
When in doubt, the honest and safe answer is the referral: they should get their own representation, and you cannot be the one to give it to them.
Why this is worth more than compliance
Set the rulebook aside for a second. The situation before TRESA was that an unrepresented person often believed the agent in front of them was, in some loose sense, helping them too. They were not, and they could not be. The current rules are unsubtle because ambiguity was the harm.
It also protects you. An unrepresented buyer who loses money and remembers that you suggested a number is a complaint with your name on it. Having said the four sentences, in writing, in advance, is the difference between an awkward conversation and a defensible file.
What to do this week
Put both documents where you can send them in ten seconds. The obligation is to deliver them before assistance, and assistance sometimes starts at an open house on a Sunday afternoon. If they live in a folder on your desktop at home, you will breach the timing and not the intention.
Write the four sentences down. Not to read them aloud like a caution, but so that the third and fourth ones come out. Under social pressure, "I can't advise you" survives and "anything you tell me goes to my seller" evaporates.
Ask earlier than feels natural. Whether someone has representation is the first question, because it determines everything that follows.
Check your templates for the word customer. If it survives anywhere in your listing presentation, your website or your email signatures, it describes a status that has not existed since March 2024.
Frequently asked questions
Can I still work with a customer instead of a client? No. Customer agreements could not be entered from December 1, 2023, and every one still in effect automatically expired on March 30, 2024. TRESA leaves a client of a brokerage or a self-represented party, and nothing between them.
An unrepresented buyer asks what to offer. What do I say? That you act for the seller, that you cannot advise them on price, and that they should get their own representation. Any number you give, including a range or a hint, is advice on price and is prohibited.
Can I fill in the offer form for a self-represented buyer? Providing a blank form can be incidental to serving your client. Choosing what goes in it is advice on terms and clauses, which is prohibited, and doing it because it helps your seller is exactly the case the test is meant to catch.
Do I have to tell them their information goes to my client? Yes, and it is one of the four messages RECO expects you to convey. It is also the one most often left unsaid, which is why disclosing it in advance matters.
When exactly do the two documents have to be delivered? Before you provide any assistance. The form and the RECO Information Guide both go across first, then you make best efforts to get an acknowledgement and give them a copy of it.
What if they refuse to sign the acknowledgement? The obligation is best efforts to obtain it, not to obtain it. Deliver the documents, record that you did and when, and carry on. A refusal is not a reason to withhold the disclosure.
Where is the authoritative version? RECO's Bulletin 2.4 and Bulletin 2.6. Bulletins explain duties under TRESA and its regulations rather than creating them, and RECO revises them. This is a practice summary, not legal advice.
The rest of the map is in our plain-English index of every RECO bulletin. The other two sections agents trip over most are advertising and lockboxes and property access.