Terms of service

Fair Market Exchange ("FMX", "we", "us") operates an online marketplace where Canadian businesses are listed for sale and prospective buyers find them. These terms govern your use of the platform.

FMX is a marketplace, not a party to any transaction. We do not buy, sell, broker, appraise or finance the businesses listed here. Any agreement to buy or sell a business is between the buyer and the seller directly.

Fair Market is a business brokerage. Fair Market Exchange is this platform. They are related but separate: the brokerage participates in the marketplace on the same footing as any other seller, and engaging the brokerage is a separate arrangement that these terms do not cover.

By creating an account or using the platform you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, do not use the platform.

You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter a binding contract.

Give us accurate information when you sign up, and keep it current. You are responsible for what happens under your account, so keep your password to yourself.

One person, one account. Do not create an account on someone else's behalf without their knowledge, and do not share a login between people who should be separately accountable.

Tell us promptly if you believe someone else has gained access to your account.

You confirm you have the right to offer the business for sale, or that you are authorised by the person who does.

The information in your listing must be accurate and not misleading. Financial figures should be stated on the basis you say they are — if you label a figure as SDE, it must be SDE.

You are responsible for your own confidentiality. The platform is built to keep you anonymous by default, but it cannot stop you naming your business in a message, a document or a conversation outside it.

If you are a broker listing on behalf of a client, you confirm you have your client's authority to list the business and to provide their contact details for the status reports FMX sends on your behalf.

You choose what information to release and when. We do not release it for you, and we do not release it to anyone you have not advanced to that stage.

Information in a listing comes from the seller. FMX does not verify revenue, cash flow, inventory, customer concentration or anything else in a listing. Do your own due diligence and take your own professional advice before committing to anything.

Anything a seller releases to you — their identity, documents, figures, the fact that the business is for sale at all — is confidential. Use it to evaluate that opportunity and for nothing else. Do not approach the seller's staff, customers or suppliers about the sale.

If you sign a non-disclosure agreement on this platform, you are bound by its terms as well as these.

You may not use the platform to source leads for your own services, to compile a list of businesses to contact, or to contact sellers about anything other than the purchase of the business they listed.

The platform lets a seller send an NDA and a buyer accept it. When a buyer accepts, we record the exact wording presented, who accepted it, and when — and we keep a copy of that wording, so a later edit to a template cannot change what was agreed.

This is a record of acceptance. It is not a certified electronic signature service and we make no claim that it meets any particular evidentiary standard. If enforceability matters to you — and in a business sale it should — use a dedicated e-signature provider and take legal advice.

The NDA is between the buyer and the seller. FMX is not a party to it and takes no responsibility for its terms, its adequacy, or its breach.

We may remove a listing, change its status, suspend an account, or decline to provide the service, where we believe these terms have been broken or the platform is being misused. Where we change a listing's status, that change is recorded along with who made it.

We do not routinely review listings before they appear, and the absence of action on our part is not an endorsement of anything listed.

We may contact you about your account, your listings and inquiries you have made. These are service messages and are not marketing.

Buyers who create accounts here are members of the platform, not of any individual broker's or seller's list. A broker who lists on FMX does not acquire a relationship with, or any right to market to, buyers they met through the platform.

FMX may contact buyers about the platform, about listings matching their criteria, and about services we offer, subject to their consent and to Canada's anti-spam legislation. Every commercial message carries a working unsubscribe.

What you write — your listing, your profile, your messages — remains yours. You give us permission to host it, display it to the people the platform is designed to display it to, and store it for as long as your account exists and as long afterwards as we are required to keep it.

That permission is limited to running the platform. We do not sell your content, and we do not use your listing to advertise anything other than your listing.

Nothing on this platform is legal, financial, tax, accounting or valuation advice. Tier badges, completeness scores, templates and guidance are conveniences, not assessments. A buyer's tier badge reflects how much they have told us about themselves, nothing more — it is not a credit check, a proof of funds, or an opinion on whether they can complete a purchase.

Buying or selling a business is a significant transaction. Engage a lawyer and an accountant.

We aim to keep the platform running but do not promise uninterrupted availability. We may change, suspend or discontinue features.

Email is central to how the platform works. We send through a reputable provider, but we cannot guarantee delivery — mail can be delayed, filtered or refused by the receiving service. Do not rely on an email alone for anything time-critical; the platform itself is the record.

The platform is provided as it is. To the extent the law allows, we exclude implied warranties.

We are not liable for the conduct of other members, for the accuracy of anything a seller publishes, for a transaction that does or does not happen, or for a breach of confidence by someone you chose to deal with.

To the extent the law allows, our total liability to you for any claim relating to the platform is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or one hundred Canadian dollars.

Nothing here limits liability that cannot be limited by law.

If someone brings a claim against us because of something you posted or did on the platform, you will cover our reasonable costs of dealing with it, except to the extent the claim arises from our own breach of these terms.

You can close your account at any time by asking us. We will remove your listings from public view.

Some records survive the closing of an account: inquiries, accepted NDAs and messages exchanged with other members, because they are part of another person's record too and may be needed to resolve a dispute. The privacy policy explains how long we keep things.

We may suspend or close an account that breaks these terms.

We may update these terms. If a change is material we will tell account holders by email and ask you to accept the new version before continuing to use the platform. The version you agreed to, and when, is recorded against your account.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Alberta and the federal laws of Canada that apply there. The courts of Alberta have jurisdiction, and you agree to bring any claim there.

Questions about these terms go to info@fair-market.ca, or through the contact form on this site.