OMVIC Mandatory Disclosures: What Ontario Dealers Must Disclose
What Ontario's Motor Vehicle Dealers Act requires dealers to disclose in writing — the full list, the $3,000 incident damage rule, the safetied and as-is contract statements, the 90-day cancellation right for non-disclosure, and why disclosure failures are almost always process failures.
Key takeaways
- Ontario dealers must disclose vehicle history, prior use, and condition facts in writing on the contract — verbal disclosure does not satisfy the MVDA
- Incident damage costing over $3,000 to repair, branded titles, prior daily rental/taxi/police use, and out-of-province history are among the required disclosures
- A used vehicle is sold either safety-certified or as-is — each has its own mandatory statement, and as-is is prohibited once a current safety certificate has been issued
- Missing certain disclosures gives the buyer a 90-day right to cancel the contract — even if the dealership didn't know the information was inaccurate
- Disclosure failures are usually process failures: the fact was known somewhere in the dealership but never reached the bill of sale
Disclaimer: This page is a general introduction to OMVIC's disclosure requirements for Ontario dealers. It is not legal advice. The Motor Vehicle Dealers Act and its regulations change over time, and how they apply depends on the specific transaction. Always consult OMVIC's official publications — including its Disclosures Guideline — and the text of Ontario Regulation 333/08, and speak with a lawyer or compliance specialist for specific questions.
Quick Answer
Under Ontario's Motor Vehicle Dealers Act (MVDA) and Regulation 333/08, dealers must disclose specific facts about a vehicle's history, prior use, and condition in writing, on the contract, before the customer signs. The list includes damage from an incident costing more than $3,000 to repair, branded titles (irreparable, salvage, rebuilt), prior use as a daily rental, taxi, limousine, or police/emergency vehicle, out-of-province history, structural damage, fire or flood damage, non-operational airbags or anti-lock brakes, a cancelled manufacturer's warranty, and needed repairs to major components. A used vehicle must also be sold either with a safety standards certificate or "as-is" — each with its own mandatory contract statement, and a dealer may not sell as-is once a current certificate has been issued. Disclosures must be "clear, comprehensible and prominent" — and verbal disclosure does not count. Missing certain disclosures gives the buyer an automatic right to cancel the contract within 90 days, even if the dealership didn't know the fact itself.
What mandatory disclosure means under the MVDA
Section 30 of the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act, 2002 requires dealers to disclose prescribed information to customers in writing. The detail lives in Regulation 333/08: sections 39 through 41 set out what must appear in contracts for new vehicle sales, used vehicle sales, and leases, and section 42 adds the vehicle history and condition disclosures most dealers mean when they say "the mandatory disclosures." Section 43 covers trade-ins, and section 47 covers extended warranties.
Three rules shape all of it:
- It must be in writing. OMVIC is explicit that providing disclosure verbally does not meet the requirements of the Act. A salesperson mentioning the accident history during the test drive is not disclosure — the bill of sale carrying it in writing is.
- It must be clear, comprehensible and prominent. Fine print doesn't qualify — that phrasing is the Consumer Protection Act's own standard for required disclosures. The disclosure has to be presented so the consumer can actually review it before signing, and OMVIC's guidance goes further: dealers and salespeople should make reasonable efforts to ensure the consumer understands what is being disclosed.
- It must be timely. Disclosure made after signing — or discovered by the customer afterwards — is a failure, not a late success.
Beyond the enumerated list, dealers and salespeople have an obligation to disclose material facts — anything that might affect the customer's decision to buy or lease if they knew about it — even when the customer doesn't ask. The Code of Ethics (Regulation 332/08) adds a catch-all: any fact affecting the structural or mechanical quality or performance of the vehicle that could reasonably influence a purchase decision must be disclosed.
The disclosures, grouped
Prior use — required in advertising and on the contract
These three must appear in a clear, comprehensible, and prominent manner in the dealer's advertising as well as the contract, if the vehicle was previously:
- A daily rental or lease vehicle — unless it was subsequently owned by someone who was not a registered dealer
- A police cruiser or emergency services vehicle
- A taxi or limousine
History and damage — required on the contract
- Incident damage costing more than $3,000 to repair — where the total cost of repairs to fix damage caused to the vehicle by an incident exceeds $3,000, that fact must be disclosed, and if the dealer knew the total cost, the total cost itself (s. 42 ¶19). Damage below the threshold isn't caught by this paragraph, but OMVIC recommends disclosing everything you know
- Branded titles — vehicles classified under the Highway Traffic Act as irreparable, salvage, or rebuilt (¶23), and separately, vehicles declared a total loss by an insurer (¶21)
- Structural damage, repair, replacement, or alteration
- Two or more adjacent panels replaced (bumper panels excluded)
- Fire damage — any damage caused by fire
- Flood or immersion damage — where liquid penetrated to at least the level of the interior floorboards
- Stolen and recovered — if the vehicle was recovered after being reported stolen
- Out-of-province history — if the vehicle was previously registered (or equivalently treated) outside Ontario, and which jurisdictions. The exception is narrow: it applies only where Ontario permits have been issued covering at least the seven previous consecutive years
Condition and specification — required on the contract
- Trim level, make, model, and model year (¶16 and ¶17 — trim level is its own standalone disclosure) — and separately, if any badge or marking on the vehicle relates to a different model than the vehicle actually is (¶18)
- Materially different from original or advertised production specifications
- Non-operational anti-lock braking system, or missing or non-operational airbags
- Cancelled manufacturer's warranty
- Needed repairs to major components — where the vehicle requires repair to the engine, transmission or power train; subframe or suspension; computer equipment; electrical system; fuel operating system; or air conditioning. Note that this paragraph carries no dollar threshold: if the vehicle needs repair in any of those systems, it must be disclosed regardless of cost
- Odometer problems — if the odometer is faulty, has been replaced, has been rolled back, or reads in miles
Distance travelled
The contract must accurately state the distance the vehicle has travelled, using the statements prescribed by section 42 when the true distance is unknown. The regulation deems a disclosed distance accurate if it's within the lesser of 5% or 1,000 kilometres of the correct figure — outside that band, the disclosure fails, with the consequences described below.
Wholesale note: the retail and wholesale disclosure lists are almost identical — the needed-repairs items are the retail-only difference. Dealer-to-dealer trades are still bound by the Code of Ethics catch-all.
The 90-day cancellation right: where non-disclosure gets expensive
Section 50 of Regulation 333/08 is what gives the disclosure list its teeth. If the contract fails to accurately disclose, in writing, any of the following, the consumer gains an automatic right to cancel the contract within 90 days of receiving the vehicle:
- The distance the vehicle has travelled, to within the lesser of 5% or 1,000 km (or the correct prescribed statement where the distance is unknown)
- Prior use as a daily rental (not subsequently owned by a non-dealer), police cruiser, emergency services vehicle, taxi, or limousine
- The year, make, and model of the vehicle
- A branded title — irreparable, salvage, or rebuilt
Two details make this stricter than most dealers assume. First, the dealer's knowledge is irrelevant: s. 50(2) allows the purchaser to cancel even if the dealership did not know the information or honestly believed it accurate — and the regulation adds "regardless of the steps taken by the dealer to ascertain or verify the information." So "the auction didn't tell us" is no defence, and neither is having done a reasonable check. Second, cancellation unwinds the whole deal — the dealership takes the vehicle back and refunds the customer, months after the sale, on a unit that has been driven all that time. The buyer cancels by giving written notice to the dealer; it need not use any particular form of words.
Beyond section 50, the Consumer Protection Act can give consumers rescission rights for misrepresentation for up to one year after entering the agreement, and OMVIC can pursue its own enforcement — from administrative penalties to licence action — for disclosure failures. Our guide to OMVIC and the Ontario dealer licence covers the enforcement side in more detail.
Safety-certified or as-is: two paths, two mandatory statements
In practice, every used vehicle a dealer sells to a retail customer goes out one of two ways, and section 40 of the regulation attaches a different mandatory statement to each. Getting this pair right is separate from — and in addition to — the history disclosures above.
If a safety standards certificate has been issued
Where a current safety standards certificate under the Highway Traffic Act has been issued for the vehicle, the contract must include that certificate plus a prescribed statement — in 12-point bold font, with the heading in 14-point bold:
Safety Standards Certificate
"A safety standards certificate is only an indication that the motor vehicle met certain basic standards of vehicle safety on the date of inspection."
The point of that wording is to stop a certificate reading as a warranty. It isn't one: Ontario's own guidance states plainly that a safety standards certificate "is not a warranty or guarantee of the vehicle's condition," and the certificate is valid for only 36 days from the inspection date. A certificate that expires before the customer registers the vehicle means paying for another inspection — which makes the certificate's clock a real scheduling constraint on delivery, not just paperwork.
If the vehicle is sold as-is
Simply writing "sold as-is" on the bill of sale is not sufficient. The contract must carry this statement, again in 12-point bold with a 14-point bold heading, and the purchaser must initial it:
Vehicle sold "as-is"
"The motor vehicle sold under this contract is being sold "as-is" and is not represented as being in road worthy condition, mechanically sound or maintained at any guaranteed level of quality. The vehicle may not be fit for use as a means of transportation and may require substantial repairs at the purchaser's expense. It may not be possible to register the vehicle to be driven in its current condition."
The rule that catches dealers out
The two paths are mutually exclusive, and the regulation says so in one direction: a dealer may not sell a used vehicle as-is to a retail customer if a current safety standards certificate has already been issued for that vehicle (s. 40(3)). You cannot certify a unit and then also sell it as-is to limit your exposure — once the certificate exists, the as-is route is closed. OMVIC's stated position is that the same as-is language should also be used in the dealer's advertising, not only on the contract, and a vehicle being sold as-is cannot be advertised as roadworthy or mechanically sound.
One more practical point: where the dealership intends to offer certification at an additional cost, OMVIC treats failing to state that cost in the advertising as a violation. And none of this narrows the history disclosures — all of the prior-use, damage, and condition disclosures above still apply to an as-is sale. As-is speaks to the vehicle's future condition, not its past.
Where disclosure actually breaks down: the handoffs
Very few disclosure violations happen because nobody in the dealership knew the fact. They happen because the person who knew it wasn't the person who printed the bill of sale.
The appraiser saw the vehicle history report showing the Alberta registration. The recon technician noticed two repainted quarter panels. The buyer at the auction knew the unit was a former daily rental. The service advisor quoted the transmission repair that never got done. Each of those facts existed inside the building — in someone's head, in an appraisal note, on a repair order — and none of them travelled the distance from acquisition to the contract the customer signed.
That makes disclosure a workflow problem, not a knowledge problem. A dealership that treats disclosure as something the F&I office remembers to check at signing will leak facts at every handoff between departments. A dealership that treats each disclosure item as a task — captured when it's discovered, assigned to an owner, visible to every department that touches the vehicle, and checked off with a record of who confirmed it — has an audit trail instead of a memory test.
This is the same discipline that makes the rest of the vehicle delivery process work: nothing promised or discovered is allowed to live only in someone's head. In a store that runs this well, the vehicle history report is pulled and attached at acquisition, findings from reconditioning are logged against the unit, and by the time the vehicle reaches delivery the person preparing the contract is reading a complete record rather than reconstructing history from hallway conversations.
That is the shape of READY HUB's delivery workflow: the work on a sold vehicle is tracked as tasks with clear ownership and status, visible to Sales, Parts, Service, and F&I at once rather than scattered across texts, inboxes, and whiteboards. Whatever software a dealership uses, the test is the same — when OMVIC investigates a complaint, the dealerships that come through cleanly are the ones that can produce the record.
Frequently asked questions
What disclosures are Ontario dealers required to make?
Ontario dealers must disclose, in writing on the contract: prior use as a daily rental, taxi, limousine, or police/emergency vehicle; incident damage costing more than $3,000 to repair; branded titles (irreparable, salvage, rebuilt) and total-loss declarations; structural damage, repair or alteration; two or more replaced adjacent panels; fire damage; flood damage to the interior floorboards; theft and recovery; out-of-province history; trim level, make, model and model year; misleading badging; materially different specifications; non-operational airbags or ABS; a cancelled manufacturer's warranty; needed repairs to major components; odometer problems; and the distance travelled. Paragraph 25 also requires any other fact that could reasonably be expected to influence a purchase decision.
What is the $3,000 disclosure rule?
Paragraph 19 of section 42 requires disclosure where the total cost of repairs to fix damage caused to the vehicle by an incident exceeds $3,000 — and if the dealership knew the total cost, the contract must state that amount too. A common misreading is to apply the $3,000 figure to repairs the vehicle currently needs. That is a different disclosure with no dollar threshold at all: if the vehicle needs repair to the engine, transmission or power train, subframe or suspension, computer equipment, electrical system, fuel operating system, or air conditioning, it must be disclosed regardless of cost.
Can a customer cancel a deal for non-disclosure?
Yes. If the contract fails to accurately disclose the distance travelled, prior use as a daily rental/taxi/limo/police/emergency vehicle, the year, make, and model, or a branded title, the consumer can cancel the contract within 90 days of receiving the vehicle — even if the dealership didn't know the information was inaccurate. The Consumer Protection Act can extend rescission rights for misrepresentation to one year.
Does verbal disclosure satisfy OMVIC requirements?
No. OMVIC is explicit that verbal disclosure does not meet the requirements of the Motor Vehicle Dealers Act. Disclosure must be made in writing on the contract, in a clear, comprehensible, and prominent manner, in time for the consumer to review it before signing.
Do I have to disclose incident damage under $3,000?
Paragraph 19 is triggered only where the repair cost exceeds $3,000, so smaller incident damage isn't caught by that paragraph. It may still be caught by others — structural damage, fire damage, and two-or-more replaced adjacent panels are all disclosable with no dollar threshold, and paragraph 25 requires disclosure of any other fact that could reasonably influence a purchase decision. OMVIC recommends disclosing everything the dealership knows, and it is the cheapest complaint prevention available.
What must the contract say when a vehicle is sold as-is?
The contract must include the exact statement prescribed by section 40(6) — that the vehicle is sold as-is, is not represented as being in road worthy condition, mechanically sound or maintained at any guaranteed level of quality, may not be fit for use as transportation, may require substantial repairs at the purchaser's expense, and may not be registrable in its current condition. It must appear in 12-point bold font under a 14-point bold heading, and the purchaser must initial it. Just writing "as-is" is not sufficient, and all other mandatory disclosures still apply.
Can a dealer sell a vehicle as-is if it already has a safety certificate?
No. Section 40(3) prohibits a registered dealer from selling a used vehicle as-is to a purchaser who is not a dealer if a current safety standards certificate under the Highway Traffic Act has been issued for that vehicle. Once the certificate exists, the as-is route is closed — the contract must instead include the certificate and the prescribed safety standards certificate statement.
What is the difference between a safetied and an as-is vehicle in Ontario?
A safety-certified vehicle has passed an inspection confirming it met certain basic safety standards on the date of inspection — the certificate is valid for 36 days and is expressly not a warranty or guarantee of condition. An as-is vehicle carries no such representation: it may not be roadworthy, may need substantial repairs, and may not be registrable as it stands. Each path has its own mandatory contract statement, and the history and condition disclosures apply identically to both.
Do disclosure rules apply to dealer-to-dealer sales?
Mostly, yes. The wholesale disclosure list is almost identical to retail — the difference is that needed repairs to major components (engine, transmission, powertrain, subframe, suspension, computer, electrical, fuel system, air conditioning) only have to be disclosed on retail sales. The Code of Ethics still requires dealers to disclose to other dealers any fact affecting the structural or mechanical quality or performance of the vehicle that could reasonably influence the buying decision.
Is a Carfax report required by law in Ontario?
No — obtaining a vehicle history report is not legally required. But the disclosure obligations apply regardless of what the dealer chose to look up, and the 90-day cancellation right applies even when the dealer didn't know a fact. OMVIC's guidance is that dealers should know the full history of what they sell, using history reports plus a proper inspection, precisely because ignorance is not a defence. See our guide to vehicle history reports.
The bottom line
OMVIC's mandatory disclosures are not a signing-desk formality — they're a test of whether information can travel through your dealership without getting lost. The regulation is unforgiving in exactly the ways that punish weak process: disclosure must be written, prominent, and made before signing; the buyer's 90-day cancellation right doesn't care what the dealership knew; and every complaint is investigated against the records you can produce.
The dealerships that never have disclosure problems aren't the ones with the best memories. They're the ones where every fact discovered about a vehicle — at appraisal, at auction, in recon, in service — is captured as a tracked, owned task that follows the unit all the way to the contract. Make disclosure a workflow, and compliance becomes a by-product of ordinary operations.
Related reading
Make disclosure a tracked task, not a memory test
READY HUB coordinates the sold-vehicle handoff so the work on every unit is tracked with clear ownership and status, visible to Sales, Parts, Service, and F&I at once. Nothing reaches delivery day living only in someone's head.