Editorial & Verification Policy

This page describes the process behind every Guidepost guide: where a fact has to come from before it is published, how often it gets re-checked, and what happens when we find we got something wrong.

Single-sourced, cited, and dated

Every figure that appears on a Guidepost guide, a fee, a limit, a deadline, a form number, traces to one official government or court source shown on that guide. We do not restate a number from memory or from a secondary source: the fact is checked against the publishing body's own page, and the page carries a “last updated” date so you can see when it was last confirmed.

Checked twice before it goes live

A new guide is not published on a single pass. The facts it depends on are checked against the official source once when they are gathered, then again before the page ships, so a transcription slip or a source that changed mid-build gets caught before a reader sees it.

Monthly audit sweeps

Beyond the initial verification, we run a recurring monthly sweep across the published site: the links we cite are checked to confirm they still resolve to the page they claim to, and a rolling slice of the facts already on the site is re-checked against its official source. Rules and fees do change, and this is how we catch it rather than finding out from a reader.

Public corrections, not quiet edits

When a sweep or a reader turns up something that has changed, or something we had wrong, we correct the guide and log the change with a date on What Changed, our public record of verified updates. Nothing on this site is corrected silently.

Plain language, province-correct

Guides are written in plain English (or French, where published), not legal or bureaucratic language, and every guide that varies by jurisdiction is written and checked separately per province: a rule that is true in Ontario is not assumed to hold in British Columbia or Quebec.

When we tell you to stop and consult a professional

Guidepost is not a law firm, and nothing on this site is legal advice. A number of guides, the ones covering separation agreements, employment terminations, home sales with an accepted offer, wills and powers of attorney, car accidents, small claims over the provincial limit, disputed tenancy notices, and contested estates, carry a specific “when to get professional help” notice that names the situation and tells you to consult a lawyer or notary (a Quebec notary in Quebec), a tribunal, or the court, rather than continue with the guide. Where a page does not name a specific trigger, it still carries the general instruction to verify with the relevant court, tribunal, or professional before you rely on it.

What this is not

This is not a claim that a lawyer, notary, or other licensed professional has checked Guidepost's guides: none has. It is not a promise of a fixed future schedule for that to happen. It describes the sourcing, verification, and correction process already in place today, so you can decide for yourself how much to rely on any given guide, and when to go get advice instead.

Common questions

Does a lawyer check Guidepost’s content before it is published?

Not currently. No formal legal review is part of our process today. Every fact is sourced from an official government or court page, shown with a citation and a last-updated date so you can verify it yourself. Guides that involve higher-risk situations, contested matters, or tight legal deadlines tell you plainly when to consult a lawyer or notary instead of relying on the guide.

How often is Guidepost’s content checked for accuracy?

We run a monthly audit sweep across the site: source links are re-checked, and a rolling slice of facts is re-verified against the official page it cites. Any change we make as a result is logged publicly and dated on What Changed, rather than edited quietly.

Last updated: August 2026. See also About Guidepost and What Changed.

How we source, verify, and correct what's on this site