Developers have to deal with the requirements imposed by a municipality through the development permit process.
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The Office of the Superintendent of Real Estate announced the release of Policy Statement 17, which temporarily amends Policy Statement 5 and Policy Statement 6 in relation to the nine month early marketing period.
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The Province of British Columbia has approved the amendments to REDMA and the Real Estate Development Marketing Regulation in order to facilitate the disclosure of information to provincial and federal authorities
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The B.C. Government has introduced draft legislation to amend the Real Estate Development Marketing Act that imposes obligations on developers in relation to the assignment of Purchase Agreements for the sale or lease of strata lots.
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Party Wall Agreements have historically been used to manage the relationship between land owners with a common boundary and a wall down the middle of the property line.
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When real estate developers consider disclosure requirements they commonly think of the obligations under the Real Estate Development Marketing Act.
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Changes have recently been introduced to the laws surrounding Land Use Contracts (“LUCs”) that could materially affect the right of a land owner to use his land that is presently subject to a LUC. LUCs are contractual agreements between property owners and a local government which were used in BC throughout the 1970s to negotiate the […]
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The Province introduced changes to the laws governing marketing of real estate development this year with changes to the Real Estate Development Marketing Act (REDMA”) in March and new policy statements which will become effective on October 1. My articles relating to those changes can be found here: Real Estate Development Marketing Act – Amendments […]
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Changes to the Real Estate Development Marketing Act (“REDMA”) came into force on May 29, 2014. The Superintendent of Real Estate has introduced amendments to policy statements under REDMA which are designed to complement the changes to REDMA. Changes to the policy statements will require new forms of Disclosure Statements to reflect changes to REDMA, […]
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Local governments across British Columbia have competing demands of providing amenities and infrastructure while keeping down taxes. Local governments are entitled to collect development cost charges to pay for certain infrastructure such as roads, parks and utility infrastructure that are required as a result of the demand from development. However, local governments are not permitted […]
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Since the introduction of the Real Estate Development Marketing Act (REDMA), developers have had concerns that any minor or insignificant variance from the strict compliance of REDMA will permit a purchaser to avoid its obligations under a Purchase Agreement.
First reading has been granted to legislation that will amend the Real Estate Development Marketing Act (REDMA) and will bring greater certainty to the real estate development [...]
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On November 13, 2012, Canada Revenue Agency announced new disclosure obligations for developers and builders which require particular information and statements to be included in purchase and sale agreements and statements of adjustments for the purchase and sale of new housing. This announcement is CRA GST/HST NOTICE 276 entitled “Elimination of the HST in British Columbia in 2013 – Transitional Rules for Real Property Including [...]
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Since 2009, real estate developers (“Developers”) have been subject to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (the “Act”). Under this Act, Developers are required to comply with the following record keeping and reporting obligations:
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The economic downturn in 2008 created circumstances where purchasers were unwilling or unable to complete on strata units that were now valued at less than the purchase price in the Purchase Agreement.Purchasers sought to avoid their obligations under the purchase agreement which developers wanted to enforce. This led to litigation with developers seeking damages from the purchaser’s breach of contract and the purchasers seeking an [...]
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Developers have to deal with the requirements imposed by a municipality through the development permit process. These requirements can be onerous and time consuming, and sometimes appear to the developer as unreasonable or arbitrarily applied.One land owner decided to push back against the denial of a development permit that the District of Squamish refused to issue. The land owner sought a declaration from the court that Squamish was [...]
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The Riparian Areas Regulation (the “RAR”) was established under the Fish Protection Act S.B.C. 1997 c.21 (the “FPA”), and came into force on March 31, 2005. RAR replaced the Streamside Protection Regulation (the “SPR/2001”), which was enacted under the FPA and came into effect in 2001. RAR was implemented with the purpose of protecting riparian […]
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This article addresses a particular challenge that a purchaser of real property in a foreclosure scenario faces with respect to its potential liability for tax (non-resident withholding tax) under section 116 of the Income Tax Act (Canada) (the “ITA”). Section 116 of the ITA makes a purchaser of real property liable to pay tax to the Canada Revenue Agency (the “CRA”) in an amount of 25% or 50% of the purchase [...]
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The Land Title Office recently considered the filing of a “building” strata plan in which a number of the strata lots consisted of a bunkhouse measuring less than 100 sq. ft. Each of the bunkhouse strata lots had designated for their exclusive use LCP which was considerably larger than the strata lot, and in some cases the LCP area measured over 2,000 sq. ft.
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On February 20, 2009, real estate developers (“Developers”) will become subject to the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (the “Act”). Developers will be required to comply with the following record keeping and reporting obligations:
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