It matters because of the length of the wait. On a multiplex home you may be two years between the first cheque and the keys. During those two years your money is not funding anything, and it is not available to the seller's other creditors.
The short version
- The trustee holding your deposit must be a brokerage, lawyer, notary public or other prescribed person, and the account must be at a savings institution in British Columbia.
- Deposits are normally paid in instalments on dates written into your contract, not in one payment.
- Money is released from trust on written consent from both sides, or on the specific conditions set out in the Act.
- Cancelling inside the 7 day window under section 21 gets your deposit back. Walking away after it closes usually does not.
- Ask for the whole deposit schedule before signing. The first instalment is the smallest part of what you are committing to.
What the trust rule actually says
The wording in section 18 is specific about three things: who may hold the money, where the account must be, and what it takes to get the money out. The holder must be a brokerage, a lawyer, a notary public or a person prescribed for the purpose. The account must be a trust account at a savings institution in British Columbia. And release requires either the written consent of both you and the seller, or one of the certification conditions set out in the Act.
The practical effect is that nobody can quietly spend your deposit. If a project stalls, the money is still sitting where it was put. That is not the same as saying you can demand it back whenever you like, which is the point buyers most often misunderstand.
You should be told in writing who is holding the money. If that information is not in your paperwork, ask for it before you pay anything, and get the answer in writing rather than over the phone.
How deposits are usually structured
There is no legal deposit amount for a pre-sale home in British Columbia. The figure and the timing come from your own purchase agreement, which is why we will not quote you a percentage as though it were a rule. What we can tell you is the shape it usually takes.
A first instalment is due at or shortly after signing. Further instalments follow on fixed dates, often tied to months elapsed rather than to progress on the building. Each instalment goes to the same trustee under the same rules. By completion you will typically have paid a meaningful share of the price, with the rest coming from your mortgage on the final day.
When you are comparing two projects, compare the deposit schedules as well as the prices. A home that costs slightly more but asks for less money up front can be the easier purchase to actually complete, particularly if you are also paying rent while you wait.
- Ask for every instalment date and amount in writing before you sign anything.
- Check whether an instalment is tied to a calendar date or to a stage of the work. Calendar dates do not move when the schedule slips.
- Confirm the name of the trustee and keep the receipt for each payment.
- Ask what happens to interest earned on the deposit. That is a contract term, not a statutory rule.
- Ask whether a deposit can be paid by a family member on your behalf, and what paperwork the lender will later want for it.
When you get the deposit back, and when you do not
There are three situations that reliably return a deposit, and a long list of situations that do not.
You get it back if you cancel inside the 7 day window under section 21 of the Act. You get it back if the seller fails to meet a condition that your contract says gives you a right to cancel, most often the outside completion date passing without the home being ready. And you get it back if the purchase is terminated under a term that expressly provides for a refund.
You generally do not get it back because your circumstances changed, because you found something you like better, or because your mortgage was declined. That last one surprises people, and it is the reason a pre-sale purchase should be treated as a financing decision first. A pre-approval given today is not a commitment for a completion two years out.
| Situation | Deposit outcome | Where the rule comes from |
|---|---|---|
| You cancel within 7 days | Returned | Section 21, Real Estate Development Marketing Act |
| Seller misses the outside completion date | Usually returned | Your purchase agreement, so read the exact clause |
| Your mortgage is declined near completion | Usually forfeited, and you may owe more | Your purchase agreement |
| You change your mind after the 7 days | Usually forfeited | Your purchase agreement |
| Seller becomes insolvent | Money stays in the trust account | Section 18, Real Estate Development Marketing Act |
Only the first and last rows are set by statute. The rest depend on wording in your own contract, which is why a lawyer should read it inside the 7 day window.
The question to ask before the first cheque
If you take one thing from this page, make it this: before you pay a deposit, sit down with the whole schedule and ask yourself whether you could still make every payment if your household income dropped by a third.
Deposits are the part of a pre-sale purchase where a change in your life turns into a financial loss. The building carries on regardless of whether you kept your job. In our view that is the single most useful test a buyer can run on themselves, and it is far more useful than any rule of thumb about what percentage a deposit should be.
If the answer is no, that is not a reason to give up on a new home. It is a reason to look at homes closer to completion, where the gap between the deposit and the keys is months rather than years.
Where the deposit money usually comes from
Most of the buyers we deal with fund a deposit from three places: savings, a gift from family, or the sale of another home. Each one has a wrinkle worth knowing about before the first instalment date.
Savings are simple, with one caveat. Money that has been sitting in your own account for months is easy to document, and money that arrived last week is not. Lenders will want to see where a down payment came from, and a deposit paid two years earlier still forms part of that story. Keep the statements.
Family money is very common on multiplex purchases, since these homes are often bought by two generations at once. The important thing is to record at the time whether the money is a gift or a loan. A gift needs a signed letter saying it does not have to be repaid, and a loan changes what you can borrow because it is a debt. Deciding this two years later, under time pressure, is how families end up arguing.
Selling another home to fund a deposit puts you on two timetables at once. Deposit instalments arrive on fixed dates, and a sale completes when it completes. If the deposit schedule assumes money you do not have yet, say so before you sign rather than after.
A fourth source turns up occasionally: money already sitting in an FHSA or an RRSP. Both have withdrawal rules built around a purchase date rather than a deposit date, so check the sequence with your lender before you promise a deposit instalment you were planning to fund that way.
Whichever source you use, keep a single folder with the statement showing the money leaving your account and the receipt showing the trustee receiving it. Two years later your lender will ask about the money and your lawyer will ask about the receipts, and the person who kept a folder answers both questions in ten minutes rather than ten days.
Questions buyers ask
More in Pre-Sale Guide
Also worth reading
Where these numbers come from
Every figure on this page comes from the body that issues it. Rules and rates change, so each entry says when we checked it.
- Real Estate Development Marketing Act, SBC 2004, c. 41. BC Laws, Queen's Printer for British Columbia. Accessed 29 August 2026.
- Boldest mortgage reforms in decades come into force today. Department of Finance Canada. Published 15 December 2024, accessed 29 August 2026.
Want this checked against a real home?
Send us the address or the project name. We will look at what is actually on offer, tell you what the numbers on this page work out to for that home, and say so if it is a poor fit.