Transferring property from one owner to another is taking a lot longer in Alberta than it used to.
According to the provincial government’s land titles website, the office is currently registering land title documents received on Feb. 4 and survey plans and documents received on March 2.
Lou Pesta, a Calgary real estate lawyer with Parlee McLaws, said the typical turnaround time during his 40-year career has been two-to-five days and as long as two weeks during peak times.
“One of the lawyers did a little bit of research online and discovered that we were taking much longer than some Third World countries in terms of registration times right now, which, frankly, is embarrassing for a province like Alberta,” he told CBC News on Thursday.
Professionals in the real estate, law and land surveying industries say the title registration delays have yet to derail deals, but they are holding up certain types of real estate transactions. They are also a looming problem for municipalities, which send out property tax bills this month.
Why are titles important?
A land title is a document that proves ownership of a piece of land.
Without it, parties in real estate transactions are in limbo between the date of sale and the purchaser taking possession, said Jim McKinnon, a partner at AICRE Commercial in Edmonton.
Jim McKinnon, a partner with AICRE Commercial, says he is now recommending property buyers have title insurance to mitigate delays at the Alberta Land Titles office. (Katie Parent/AICRE Commercial)
“It’s another impediment or another thing in the way of a deal happening,” said McKinnon, who first noticed title delays last summer and saw them increase through the fall and winter.
Because of the delays, he now recommends all purchasers have title insurance.
Title insurance is a type of policy that can protect property owners from title-related problems, including liens against a property, title fraud and surveying mistakes. It also allows money to exchange hands before a land transfer is finished.
Another workaround is the Western Law Societies’ Conveyancing Protocol — an arrangement that allows mortgage funds and sale proceeds to flow before the title is registered — but the protocol doesn’t apply to commercial properties.
A problem for municipalities
Because cities don’t have data on property ownership changes during the past few months, property tax invoices may not reach the right people when they are mailed out later this month.
“Homeowners have to track down the tax bills to pay them on time in June, which could be a problem this year with some people falling through the cracks and potentially being penalized for late property tax payments,” Pesta said.
Some cities, including Cold Lake and Airdrie, are advising property owners to submit new property information online.
Ab. Land Titles reports 3-4 month delay in processing land title transfers. We likely won’t receive updated ownership info for property purchased after Feb/22 before tax notices are mailed in June. Update the City on your new property ownership: <a href=”https://t.co/1NvDtpRSYZ”>https://t.co/1NvDtpRSYZ</a>. <a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/ColdLake?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”>#ColdLake</a> <a href=”https://t.co/ggBfkPaYMa”>pic.twitter.com/ggBfkPaYMa</a>
“While delays are out of our control, we are working on a variety of mitigations that will still allow new property owners who may not yet show up on title to find out their tax balance information as well as to sign up for the monthly payment program through a tailored approach for these circumstances,” said Anton Szabo, director of policy and data quality with the City of Edmonton’s assessment and taxation branch.
Szabo said the city encourages property owners in this situation to contact 311.
Land surveyors also affected
Delays are also affecting the land surveying industry, with a wait for survey plans and document registrations of at least two months.
“It slows down the process with regards to how we can turn over title to developers so that they can turn over title to home builders, so home builders can build a home and turn it over to individuals for purchasing,” said John Byrne, a land surveyor with IBI Group.
Byrne, who is also the president of the Alberta Land Surveyors’ Association, said he and executive director Brian Munday brought up the issue with Service Alberta during a September meeting.
He said the government said it tried to hire back some retired staff and committed to hiring more people, but the training for new hires takes several months.
What’s causing the delays?
Lindsay Milligan, press secretary for Service Alberta Minister Nate Glubish, said real estate transactions and packages submitted for registration have nearly doubled since April of last year.
She said the government allocated $9.1 million in the most recent budget to address the backlog and that money will mean staff in the land titles office will nearly double.
“We are also making changes to examination processes, looking into technological solutions and continuing to provide resources to help acquaint lawyers with the pending registration queue,” she said.
She said Service Alberta is working to implement solutions by the summer and expects to see the backlog decrease after that.
TORONTO – One expert predicts Ottawa‘s changes to mortgage rules will help spur demand among potential homebuyers but says policies aimed at driving new supply are needed to address the “core issues” facing the market.
The federal government’s changes, set to come into force mid-December, include a higher price cap for insured mortgages to allow more people to qualify for a mortgage with less than a 20 per cent down payment.
The government will also expand its 30-year mortgage amortization to include first-time homebuyers buying any type of home, as well as anybody buying a newly built home.
CIBC Capital Markets deputy chief economist Benjamin Tal calls it a “significant” move likely to accelerate the recovery of the housing market, a process already underway as interest rates have begun to fall.
However, he says in a note that policymakers should aim to “prevent that from becoming too much of a good thing” through policies geared toward the supply side.
Tal says the main issue is the lack of supply available to respond to Canada’s rapidly increasing population, particularly in major cities.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 17,2024.
OTTAWA – The Canadian Real Estate Association says the number of homes sold in August fell compared with a year ago as the market remained largely stuck in a holding pattern despite borrowing costs beginning to come down.
The association says the number of homes sold in August fell 2.1 per cent compared with the same month last year.
On a seasonally adjusted month-over-month basis, national home sales edged up 1.3 per cent from July.
CREA senior economist Shaun Cathcart says that with forecasts of lower interest rates throughout the rest of this year and into 2025, “it makes sense that prospective buyers might continue to hold off for improved affordability, especially since prices are still well behaved in most of the country.”
The national average sale price for August amounted to $649,100, a 0.1 per cent increase compared with a year earlier.
The number of newly listed properties was up 1.1 per cent month-over-month.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 16, 2024.
MONTREAL – Two Quebec real estate brokers are facing fines and years-long suspensions for submitting bogus offers on homes to drive up prices during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Christine Girouard has been suspended for 14 years and her business partner, Jonathan Dauphinais-Fortin, has been suspended for nine years after Quebec’s authority of real estate brokerage found they used fake bids to get buyers to raise their offers.
Girouard is a well-known broker who previously starred on a Quebec reality show that follows top real estate agents in the province.
She is facing a fine of $50,000, while Dauphinais-Fortin has been fined $10,000.
The two brokers were suspended in May 2023 after La Presse published an article about their practices.
One buyer ended up paying $40,000 more than his initial offer in 2022 after Girouard and Dauphinais-Fortin concocted a second bid on the house he wanted to buy.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
