Listing Contract (BC Multiple Listing Contract)

The Multiple Listing Contract (MLC) is the BCREA-standard form a BC seller signs with a designated listing licensee to engage representation and authorize the licensee to publish the listing on the member-board MLS system. The MLC establishes (1) the agency relationship under BC's designated agency model (the licensee, NOT the brokerage, owes fiduciary duties to the seller — see /glossary/designated-agency); (2) the listing duration (typically 60-90 days, though 30-day and 6-month listings are also common); (3) the commission structure including the cooperating-licensee split that incentivizes member-board cooperation; (4) seller representations about the property and authority to act.

The trap most BC sellers fall into: treating the MLC as a take-it-or-leave-it form. Every term except the BCREA-prescribed clauses is negotiable, including duration, commission rate, the cooperating-licensee split, holdover-clause language (the period after the MLC ends during which the listing licensee still earns commission on a buyer the licensee introduced), and the early-cancellation-fee schedule. Read the holdover clause carefully — if you cancel and re-list a week later with a different brokerage to a buyer the first licensee previously showed, you can owe both commissions. The cooperating-licensee split also affects buyer behavior: a 1.0%/0.5% structure (over $100K to first $100K, then 0.5%) materially under-incentivizes BC buyers' agents on the show list and reduces traffic.