Long delays in land title transfers continue to frustrate those involved in real estate transactions in Alberta.
Service Alberta told CBC News in May that it was working to implement solutions to the backlog by summer and expected wait times would decrease.
However, since the spring, the delay has been reduced from approximately three months to four.
As of Thursday, according to the province’s website, the land titles office was registering land titles received on June 22 and survey plans and documents received on August 12.
The delays affect the people buying and selling properties, the industries involved in those transactions, and municipal tax departments.
“We would like it to be faster, but our hands are tied,” said Paul Gravelle, president of the Edmonton Association of Realtors.
A pain for lawyers and lenders
Carl Bösecke, a partner at Bösecke Law in Edmonton, said his firm often handles transactions for people returning home. Those customers end up reselling homes before the title is registered in their name, he said.
“It gets really complicated for new lenders to track all the transactions that aren’t recorded and then we spend a lot of time with the title insurance companies, trying to explain to people in Ontario why we’re having so much trouble in Alberta. , ” he said.
Bösecke said that in some cases lenders forfeited loans due to delays. In one case, it cost one of his clients about $200,000.
Lawyers recommend that their clients purchase title insurance to mitigate delays.
Lawyers collect money at closing, but are not permitted to invoice and deposit the funds into their own bank accounts until title registration occurs, so title transfer delays caused a cash flow problem for some.
In a newsletter in August, the Law Society of Alberta said it had received several inquiries from real estate lawyers facing financial pressures due to delays in collecting fees on real estate transactions.
Tax notices sent to former owners
Anton Szabo, director of policy and data quality for the City of Edmonton’s assessment and taxation branch, said that due to land title delays, some assessment notices and additional taxes were sent to owners of record rather than new buyers.
Szabo said the city sent out more notices and asked real estate agents, home builders, attorneys and banks to pass on information to customers who recently purchased property.
“While we can’t really measure the effectiveness of these actions, we continue to be as open, transparent and accessible to all owners as possible,” he said.
Wes Price, who bought a condo in Edmonton on June 30 and has yet to receive the land titles, told CBC News that providing the city and a property management company with additional documents to prove the sale was time consuming. and frustrating.
Albertans who recently purchased property did not receive a tax notice from the municipality, but later paid late penalties as a result may be eligible to receive the additional fee from the province.
More staff to hire
Service Alberta attributed the land title delays to an increase in land registration documents over the past 18 months.
A ministry spokesman said the government had increased its workforce by half and was planning a further increase of 20%.
The government also recently launched a pilot project that returns incomplete parcels before they enter the queue. This system is designed to save staff time, but the spokesperson said it was too early to determine if it worked.
Call for modernization
Some lawyers are calling for a modernization of the land titles system to bring Alberta’s processing times more in line with those of other provinces.
“British Columbia has a much more efficient system than ours, as does Saskatchewan,” Bösecke said.
The Service Alberta spokesperson said a modernization project is underway.
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