Selling · Certificate of location · Lévis
In Lévis, the Charny house gained a pool, the Vieux-Lévis one has a porch on the neighbour's lot and the Saint-Nicolas one keeps a 2011 builder certificate: none passes with the notary. Here is what the surveyor checks, what it costs and when to order it.
In Lévis, the certificate of location is the document the notary and the lender require to close a sale: prepared by a land surveyor, it describes the current state of the premises (boundaries, buildings, servitudes, encroachments, compliance with by-laws). The seller provides it at their expense if it is outdated or inaccurate; the law sets no expiry date, but notaries and lenders in practice require a certificate of about ten years at most, with no change since. Lévis runs from Saint-Nicolas to Pintendre: old homes of Vieux-Lévis on irregular lots, 1960s to 1980s bungalows in Charny, Saint-Romuald and Saint-Jean-Chrysostome extended with a pool and a shed, and recent neighbourhoods of Saint-Nicolas and Saint-Rédempteur delivered with the builder's certificate. The surveyor also records the servitudes of the main roads and the waterfront properties on the St. Lawrence and the Chaudière. Count $1,200 to $2,500 and 4 to 8 weeks, more for a large rural lot that needs staking.
It is the land surveyor's report describing the current state of the property: lot boundaries, position of the buildings, servitudes, encroachments and compliance with by-laws. In a sale, the standard rule of the brokerage forms (clause 10.1) requires the seller to provide, at their expense, a certificate that reflects the current state of the premises; if it is outdated or inaccurate, the new one is on the seller. The law gives it no expiry date: the test is accuracy, but notaries and lenders in practice require a certificate of at most about ten years with no change since (pool, shed, extension, fence, cadastral renovation). The full detail is on our page certificate of location in Quebec.
Lévis groups three boroughs (Desjardins, Les Chutes-de-la-Chaudière-Est and Ouest) and as many built environments. Vieux-Lévis and Saint-Romuald sell pre-1950 homes on narrow, irregular lots, where porches, sheds and hedges often encroach on the neighbour or the street: the surveyor records the encroachments and the rights of way between lots. Charny, Saint-Jean-Chrysostome, Breakeyville and Pintendre sell 1960s to 1990s bungalows and cottages on suburban lots, extended, with a pool, a shed and a garage whose setbacks are checked against the Lévis zoning by-law. Saint-Nicolas, Saint-Rédempteur and Saint-Étienne, built since 2000, have builder certificates made inaccurate by decks and fences. Along the river, the Chaudière and the Etchemin, the shoreline strip and the mapped flood zones appear on the certificate, as do Hydro-Québec line and Highway 20 servitudes. With houses sold in about twenty days in the second quarter of 2026, a certificate ordered at the decision to sell keeps an offer from stalling. See real estate broker in Lévis and selling a house in Lévis.
A certificate of location stops being "current" as soon as something is added to the lot. Yet in Lévis, of the 300 houses sold on Centris between September 16, 2025 and September 16, 2026, 26% had a pool and 33% a garage: together with the shed, the fence and the extension, these are the most frequent additions that make the original certificate obsolete. And 42% of these houses were built before 1980: if their last certificate dates from the previous purchase, it is often more than ten years old, the limit notaries and lenders apply in practice.
| Addition | Share of houses sold | Median price with | Median price without |
|---|---|---|---|
| A pool | 26% | $462,000 | $420,000 |
| A garage | 33% | $505,000 | $420,000 |
Source: Centris (Matrix), single-family sales closed between September 16, 2025 and September 16, 2026, up to 300 per city, aggregates only. The pool and the garage also raise the price; the detail is in our page on what a pool and a garage are worth in Lévis. For the certificate, the consequence is simple: if one of these was added since the surveyor's last report, a new one is needed, and the seller pays for it.
On 500 sales in Lévis in 12 months, the median time between listing and acceptance is 5 days (half of the sales close between 3 and 17,5 days). A sale that goes above the asking price closes in 4 days; a sale below asking in 19 days, and that is the case for 32% of transactions, with a median discount of $14,000 (2.7%). A certificate ordered after acceptance adds four to eight weeks to that calendar, and a lingering "subject to the certificate" condition gives the buyer a reason to renegotiate.
The other figure to know: in Lévis, 18% of the listings that ended in 12 months were withdrawn, expired or cancelled without a sale (299 against 1,343 sold), and the withdrawn ones asked 16.6% more than the sold ones. The certificate is not the first cause, the price is; but an incomplete file stretches the delay, and the delay ends up costing the price. The detail is in how much people really negotiate in Lévis and the houses that do not sell in Lévis.
The median sale price of a house in Lévis is $426,500. A new certificate costs $1,200 to $2,500 depending on the property, or 0.3% to 0.6% of the price. The median discount granted by sellers who accept below asking is $14,000, and a missing certificate is exactly the kind of argument a buyer uses to get it. Ordering the certificate before listing, when it is outdated or inaccurate, therefore costs less than discovering it at the offer: that is the rule the team applies on every sale mandate in Lévis.
Count generally $1,200 to $2,500 depending on the property and the region, and above all 4 to 8 weeks of delay. That is the number one reason we ask our sellers to order it as soon as they decide to sell, not at the promise to purchase: a certificate that arrives late delays the notary, and a certificate that reveals an encroachment at the last minute derails the sale. The shed on the neighbour's line or the pool too close to the boundary are discovered here, not after signing.
One of the team’s Lévis listings, for sale right now:
At $490,000 it stays under the $500,000 threshold where Lévis lifts transfer duty from 1.5% to 3%: the welcome tax comes to $5,460.50 instead of climbing twice as fast on the next dollar.
Our other data series for Lévis, drawn from Centris listings:
Each page is recalculated from the past year's actual sales, aggregates only.
If it is less than about ten years old AND nothing has changed (no construction, extension, pool, fence, cadastral operation or new by-law), it generally passes with the notary and the lender. Otherwise, plan on a new certificate.
The seller, under the standard clause of the brokerage forms, if theirs is outdated or inaccurate. If their certificate reflects the current state of the premises and the buyer or their lender demands a new one anyway, it is on the buyer.
4 to 8 weeks in 2026 depending on the workload of the region's land surveyors. Order it as soon as you decide to sell.
Also available in French: version française de ce guide.
Published September 7, 2026 by the Loaa & Manseur team, the number 1 team at RE/MAX Platine in 2024 and 2025, 6th RE/MAX team in Quebec, 15th in Canada and in the global top 50 according to the official RE/MAX ranking. Tell us about your project.
Équipe no 1 de RE/MAX Platine en 2024 et en 2025, 6e au Québec, 15e au Canada et dans le top 50 mondial au classement officiel RE/MAX. Réponse en moins de 24 heures, sept jours sur sept.