Two credentials out of three cannot be verified by the consumer

Base: 664 published profiles (517 distinct professionals), computed at build time on July 30, 2026.

The problem is not fraud. It is doubt.

A buyer is about to hand the largest transaction of their life to a broker, a notary, an inspector. They want to do what every Canadian regulator recommends: verify the credential at the official register. They open the professional's website. They read "member of AIBQ", "real estate broker", "certified appraiser". And there they stall: without a number, they must search by name — and names collide.

This is not hypothetical. The OACIQ register holds two Catherine Labrecques; it took cross-checking the business address to know which was which. A hurried consumer facing two results takes the first — or gives up. Either way, the verification everyone recommends did not happen.

So this study does not measure illegality, and that must be said upfront. The vast majority of these professionals are in good standing. What it measures is something else, and it is measurable: can the reader check it themselves, without ambiguity? In 65% of cases, the answer is no.

What was measured, exactly

Every profile Payotte publishes carries a "credential" score out of 15, on a three-value scale built around a single question: what can the reader actually do with what is displayed?

• 15/15 — identifier published. A licence or membership number, plus the body named. The reader types the number into the register: homonyms impossible. 234 profiles, of which 232 publish a number (the rest: membership confirmed in the association's directory).
• 12/15 — body named, no identifier. The reader knows where to look, but must search by name, homonyms included. 420 profiles — the bulk of the problem.
• 0/15 — no body named, or a credential not confirmed at source. 10 profiles.

The 12 is not a penalty: it is a "pending proof". Every number a professional sends back lifts their profile to 15/15 — and it works, as quantified below.

By profession: the notary is the hardest to verify

Published profiles, ranked from least to most verifiable profession.

How to read: the last column is the share of profiles where the reader can remove all doubt. The lower it is, the more the credential rests on the professional’s word.

The gap between trades is sharp: 51% of mortgage brokers publish an identifier, against 16% of notaries and real-estate lawyers. This is no collection artefact: the more a profession is governed by a state regulator issuing a visible, daily-use number (real estate, mortgage brokerage), the more that number circulates. Where the credential comes from a professional order or an association, it is announced in words — "notary", "certified appraiser" — but rarely with its number.

The notaries and lawyers case is the starkest: 84% of their profiles carry no identifier. These are the professionals who handle the transaction's money.

By province: the geography of doubt

Published profiles by province, largest sample first.

Small samples (under thirty profiles) should be read with caution: they describe our covered markets, not the whole province. The three large samples — Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia — sit within a narrow band, suggesting the phenomenon is not provincial but professional and cultural: nobody ever asked these professionals to display their number, so they do not.

The proof it is fixable: you just have to ask

Payotte writes to the professionals in its directory asking them to confirm their profile — including their licence number. The result is unambiguous: among the 66 profiles confirmed by the professional themselves, 65% publish a verifiable identifier, against 32% of the others. Simply asking the question doubles verifiability.

Nobody refuses. It is not a guarded secret: it is information nobody thought to publish. The problem is neither bad faith nor regulation — it is a habit, and a habit changes with one line added to an email signature.

The case that will move first: Quebec home inspectors

From October 1, 2027, a home inspector performing pre-purchase inspections in Quebec must hold a certificate from the Régie du bâtiment du Québec (the REIBH regulation, in force since October 2024, with a transition period to August 2, 2027). The certificate is not yet mandatory — but it is already being issued: an inspector can obtain one today.

Where things stand in our data: of 33 published Quebec inspectors, 23 cite the AIBQ — an association, not a regulator — and only 3 cite the RBQ. Fourteen months from the deadline, the trade's only state credential in Quebec is cited by a handful of professionals. For a buyer the distinction is far from cosmetic: an association membership is not a licence.

Three moves, by whoever can make them

None requires a change in the law.

• The professional: add the licence number to the website, the email signature and the Google profile. Thirty seconds, a permanent credibility gain — and, in our data, the single move that doubles verifiability.
• The association or order: make the member directory searchable by number as well as by name, and encourage displaying it. Associations do not carry the regulators’ anti-list clauses: they can help the public without exposing themselves.
• The buyer: demand the number before signing anything. A professional in good standing gives it immediately — the request itself is already a test.

And the regulator? It has nothing to change: Consumer Protection BC already shows the way, explicitly inviting the public to check their inspector's licence on its website. The problem is not at the register. It is upstream, where the credential is announced.

Method

• Population. 717 profiles assessed, of which 664 published (rejected profiles excluded) — 517 distinct professionals, one professional possibly covering two or three sectors.
• This is NOT a market survey. Payotte lists only one professional per city × sector × profession: the best-verified in that market. The sample is therefore favourable. The real market rate is likely worse — the only direction these data allow us to assert.
• Classification. Three-value scale (identifier published / body only / none), applied profile by profile since July 2026 by reading the professional's public sources and written declarations.
• No serial querying of registers. Regulators' terms of use (OACIQ, RECO, RECA, BCFSA, law societies, AIC) forbid compiling lists and commercial use. Identifiers come from the professionals themselves or their publications; association directories, which carry no such clauses, were consulted case by case.
• The 2 unconfirmed credentials were checked one by one against the cited association's directory and noted at source. They are not machine-detected: no extrapolation enters that figure.
• Regeneration. Every figure on this page is computed at build time from Payotte's public database (last generated: July 30, 2026). They move with every corrected profile — including downwards for us.

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