TREB sends real estate company threat over publication of GTA sales data

TORONTO — The Toronto Real Estate Board says it has written to members who posted Greater Toronto Area home sales data requesting to know where they got the numbers from.

TREB says the letters are a way of ensuring no one has breached their contracts with the board by “jumping the gun” and releasing data before the board has allowed it.

Real estate company Zoocasa says after it posted the data through a password-protected virtual office website it received a cease-and-desist letter from the board threatening to take away its TREB membership and access to the Multiple Listing Service, where data is compiled when deals close.

Zoocasa chief executive officer Lauren Haw says she is disappointed TREB has yet to respond to a request from her seeking clarity around how data can be posted after the Supreme Court refused to hear a case in which TREB was arguing to prevent the data from being available online at all.

Citing privacy and copyright concerns, TREB fought the Competition Bureau to prevent the data’s online release for seven years at three different judicial bodies, but lost each time.

TREB believes when it lost at the Supreme Court in August it was given 60 days to prepare for the data to be released, but the bureau says that time passed in between TREB’s appeals to various courts.

The Canadian Press