I was interviewed on Global News today about the situation vis-a-vis Land Titles Services. Short answer is that all the lawyers I've had to deal with so far, including our office, are allowing key release on tenancy at will when acting for Seller, but on the Buyer's side we're not releasing money unless we happen to have title insurance from a provider who allows us to use a search done prior to the closing date. The Buyer has to pay a bit of interest to the seller, but for the most part it's saved on their mortgage, so the only real effect is that Sellers are getting paid a couple of days late. I had one Seller who is moving to Nova Scotia and couldn't wait for money so we had to scramble to organize bridge financing for them, but other than that type of thing, it's being handled pretty responsibly by real estate firms IMO and it should end up being fairly minor in the vast majority of cases.
See the interview: I don't think I can embed from Global's site...
http://www.globaltvcalgary.com/video...p=1&s=dd#video