A Notice of Security Interest, or NOSI, is a claim registered against a property’s title under Ontario’s Personal Property Security Act, almost always tied to a rented or financed item installed in the home, a water heater, a furnace, an HVAC unit, rather than the property itself. It isn’t a mortgage and it isn’t a charge against the land, but it still shows up on every title search, and for years that caught sellers off guard partway through a sale. Ontario’s Homeowner Protection Act, 2024 banned most new consumer NOSI registrations and cancelled the legal force of existing ones, which is why “nosi ban ontario” is now its own common search. This guide covers what a NOSI actually is, what the 2024 change did and didn’t do, and what a seller or buyer does when one turns up on a title search today, alongside everything else a Toronto closing involves in our complete Toronto real estate guide.
What a NOSI actually is
A NOSI is a registration under the Personal Property Security Act, the provincial law that governs how a creditor publicly records a claim against personal property, goods that aren’t land. When a homeowner rents or finances a piece of equipment installed in their house, most often a water heater, a furnace, or central air conditioning, the company supplying it can register a NOSI against the property’s land title to put the world on notice of its interest in that specific item. The registration lives in the same system a mortgage or a lien would appear in, which is exactly why it surfaces during a title search, but the interest it protects is in the equipment, not in the house. Nobody loses their home over an unpaid water heater rental. What they lose, until the notice is cleared, is a clean title search.
What changed under the Homeowner Protection Act, 2024
The Homeowner Protection Act, 2024 received royal assent on June 6, 2024, and it did more than stop new registrations. It banned new NOSI registrations against land for “consumer goods,” meaning goods used mainly for personal, family, or household purposes, and it deemed every consumer-goods NOSI already registered before that date to have expired on the spot. An expired NOSI no longer gives its holder any claim against the property. The reason the change happened is on the public record too: some suppliers and door-to-door equipment sellers used NOSIs on rented household items to pressure homeowners into inflated payouts at closing or to discourage them from switching providers, since an unresolved notice complicates a sale. That pattern is also why “nosi ban ontario” gets searched on its own, separately from people just learning what a NOSI is.
The ban only reaches consumer goods. A NOSI tied to equipment financed for a rental property or a commercial use, rather than the owner’s own household purposes, isn’t automatically expired by this law and still runs under the ordinary rules: it ends when the debt is paid, the creditor consents to its removal, or the registration itself lapses.
Does a NOSI from before the ban still affect a sale today
Legally, no, if it was a consumer-goods NOSI registered before June 6, 2024. The Act deemed it expired that day, and an expired NOSI has no claim on the land regardless of whether anyone has done anything to clean it up. In practice, it can still slow a sale down, because the registration doesn’t disappear from the title record by itself. It keeps showing up when a lawyer runs a search, and a buyer’s lawyer who sees an unfamiliar registration will ask about it even if it’s expired in law, simply because an unexplained entry on title is the kind of thing a careful lawyer always flags.
Clearing it formally is a short, specific legal step, not a negotiation. Only the property owner’s own lawyer can apply to have an expired consumer NOSI struck from the register, by filing an application together with a statement confirming the underlying good was a consumer good, a process a real estate law firm’s own practical guide for lawyers, practicepro.ca’s “Navigating NOSIs and PPSA”, walks through in detail. That application doesn’t need the original creditor’s sign-off, because the law already settled the question of whether the interest survives. A seller who spots an old NOSI on a preliminary title search well before listing can have it cleared quietly, with no drama and no need to track down whoever registered it in the first place.
How a NOSI surfaces during a Toronto transaction
Most sellers find out they have a NOSI on title the same way they find out about anything else sitting quietly in the land registry: their own lawyer runs a title search once the property goes under contract, and an unfamiliar registration comes back. A buyer’s lawyer does the same search from the other side, so a NOSI the seller never mentioned or forgot about still gets caught before closing either way. Clearing it, whether it’s an expired consumer NOSI that needs the formal application described above or a legitimate non-consumer NOSI that needs the creditor’s consent, is the seller’s responsibility to resolve before the deal closes, the same as any other title item a buyer’s lawyer flags.
Our guide to title insurance in Ontario explains that a standard policy generally covers undisclosed claims that existed but weren’t caught before closing, the same broad category of title defect a pre-ban or non-consumer NOSI would fall into. It isn’t a reason to skip the title search or assume a policy makes the question moot; it’s a backstop for what a search misses, not a substitute for clearing a known item before closing day.
How a NOSI differs from a lien or a mortgage
These three terms get used loosely around a title search, and they aren’t interchangeable. A mortgage is a registered charge against the land itself, securing money borrowed to buy or refinance the property; if it isn’t paid, the lender has rights against the house. In a real estate context, a lien usually secures unpaid value for work or materials supplied to the property, also registered against the land. A NOSI is neither. It secures a creditor’s interest in a specific piece of equipment sitting inside the house, and the only reason it touches the land title system at all is to give public notice of that interest. Nobody can force a sale of the house over an unpaid NOSI the way a mortgage lender or a lien claimant could over the land itself; the practical problem it creates is a complication on a title search, not a claim on the property.
Frequently asked questions
What is a Notice of Security Interest (NOSI) in Ontario?
A Notice of Security Interest, or NOSI, is a registration under the Personal Property Security Act that a creditor files against a property’s land title to flag a claim against a specific piece of equipment installed in the home, most commonly a rented or financed water heater, furnace, or HVAC unit. It isn’t a mortgage and doesn’t give anyone a claim on the land itself. It ends up in the land registry system purely so that anyone searching the title, including a buyer’s lawyer, sees that the equipment inside the house is subject to someone else’s interest, separate from the house’s own ownership.
What did Ontario’s 2024 NOSI ban actually change?
The Homeowner Protection Act, 2024, which received royal assent on June 6, 2024, banned new NOSI registrations against land for consumer goods, items used mainly for personal, family, or household purposes, and it deemed every consumer-goods NOSI registered before that date to have expired immediately. That second part matters more than the ban on new ones: it means an old NOSI on a Toronto property isn’t just unregistrable from here on, it has no legal effect at all as of June 6, 2024, even though it may still appear on the title record until someone applies to have it struck.
Does an expired NOSI still need to be removed before a home can sell?
Legally, an expired consumer-goods NOSI has no claim on the property, so a sale can proceed without it being struck first. In practice, most sellers clear it anyway, because it still shows up on a title search and a buyer’s lawyer will ask about it. The property owner’s own lawyer can apply to have it deleted from the register by filing a statement confirming the underlying item was a consumer good, without needing the original creditor’s consent. Doing this before listing, rather than after a buyer’s lawyer raises it, keeps the transaction moving on schedule.
Can a non-consumer NOSI still be registered or still affect a sale?
Yes. The 2024 ban and the automatic expiry only reach NOSIs tied to consumer goods, equipment used mainly for personal, family, or household purposes. A NOSI tied to equipment financed for a rental property or a commercial use isn’t covered by the ban and isn’t automatically cancelled, so it still runs under the ordinary rules: it ends when the debt is paid off, the creditor agrees to release it, or the registration itself expires on its own schedule. A seller with this kind of NOSI on title needs to resolve it directly with the creditor before closing, not assume the 2024 law handled it.
How is a NOSI different from a lien or a mortgage on a property?
A mortgage is a registered charge against the land itself, securing money borrowed against the property. In a real estate context, a lien usually secures unpaid value for work or materials supplied to the property, also registered against the land directly. A NOSI secures a creditor’s interest in a piece of equipment inside the house, not the house or land itself, and only touches the title system to give public notice of that interest. None of the three are interchangeable, and confusing a NOSI for a lien or a mortgage during a transaction can make a minor, routine fix look like a much bigger problem than it is.
What should a seller do if a title search turns up a NOSI?
Bring it to a real estate lawyer as soon as it turns up, ideally during a preliminary title search before the property is even listed. A lawyer can confirm quickly whether it’s a consumer-goods NOSI registered before June 6, 2024, in which case it’s already legally expired and can be formally struck from the register without the original creditor’s involvement, or a non-consumer NOSI that still needs to be paid off or released directly. Either way, this is a routine, well-documented legal step with a known process behind it, not a sign of a deeper title problem. Get in touch with our team once your lawyer has confirmed what you’re dealing with, to talk through timing for the rest of the sale.
A NOSI is a routine title item with a clear legal process behind it, whether it’s an old consumer registration your lawyer can have struck in a straightforward application or a non-consumer NOSI that needs paying off directly. Confirm which one you have with a real estate lawyer before it becomes a closing-day surprise, then get in touch with our team to talk through the rest of your sale. See our guides to title insurance in Ontario and closing day in Ontario for the rest of what a Toronto closing involves, and browse the rest of our guides for more.