Legal Brief for April, 2011

Real Property Reports

With spring finally arriving here in Edmonton after our very long winter, prospective home buyers are starting to get active looking at properties.  First time buyers will hear a lot of new terms and words, which can be quite confusing as they try to make sense of everything.  One of the terms that will be frequently mentioned is something called a Real Property Report.  What exactly is this and why is it so important?

A Real Property Report is a document showing the results of an actual survey of a property by a survey company.  It is primarily used in transactions involving single family dwellings (houses or duplexes) rather than condo units.  The Report will show the dimensions of anything built on the property, primarily the house and garage, but also such items as decks and sheds.  The Report will also detail the distances from the house and garage to the respective boundaries of the lot.  It will indicate whether there is anything on the property that goes over a lot boundary and is partly on an adjoining lot or whether there is anything from an adjoining lot that is partly on the property being surveyed (these are known as "encroachments").  The Report will also show the location of any fences on the property, as well as the presence of any utility rights of way.

The survey company will begin the preparation process by first reviewing a copy of the Certificate of Title for the property, obtained from the Land Titles Office.  It will be reviewed for the presence of any easements, rights of way or encroachment agreements registered against the Title.  They will also review a copy of the subdivision plan for the immediate area around the property.  A survey team will then be sent out to the property to do an actual field survey and measurements.  Those measurements are then used to prepare the actual Report document itself.

Current practice in Edmonton is for the seller of a property to supply a Real Property Report as part of the documents required for completion of the sale.  A seller is only required however to provide a Report which shows "the current improvements" on the property.  If you have not made any exterior changes to your property since you purchased it, you will be allowed to provide the Report that you received at the time of your purchase, rather than having to pay for a new Report to be prepared.  However, if you have added a deck or a garage to your property for example after you purchased it, then you would need to pay to have a new Report prepared, or to have the existing Report updated by the same survey company if possible.

The cost for a new Real Property Report will vary, but a general range at the present time for a standard residential lot in the City of Edmonton and neighbouring communities is between $450.00 to $650.00.  It generally takes 3-4 weeks from the time a Report is ordered for it to be completed.

Next month we will look at why Real Property Reports are considered such important documents.  This will lead us to consideration of another term that is often heard in conjunction with Real Property Reports, which is a Compliance Certificate.