Real Estate Law Blog

On September 20, 2020, the Province of British Columbia confirmed by Order in Council that most of the provisions of the Land Owner Transparency Act, SBC 2019, c 23 (“LOTA”), will come into force on November 30, 2020. The Province also released the Land Owner Transparency Regulation (the “Regulation”), which will come into effect concurrently with LOTA. The ...

Beginning in the fall of 2019, many strata owners in British Columbia saw their insurance premiums jump between 50% and 700% from the previous year, along with similar increases in their insurance deductibles. Although garnering less attention than the insurance crisis in the residential strata market, commercial landlords and tenants are also seeing significant ...

In OSED Howe Street Vancouver Leaseholds Inc. v. FS Property Inc., 2020 BCSC 1066, the BC Supreme Court issued an interim injunction to prevent an owner from swinging a construction crane over its neighbour’s property outside of previously agreed upon hours.

The decision provides a useful exposé of what factors the court will consider in determining the appropriate ...

This blog post is further to our post on the B.C. government’s revised measures for residential landlords and tenants.

On July 16, 2020 the Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing (the “Minister”) announced a framework for rent repayment once the ban on evictions for the non-payment of rent is lifted on September 1, 2020. A ministerial order implementing the ...

On June 24, 2020, the Minister of Public Safety issued a new ministerial order pursuant to the province’s Emergency Program Act relating to residential tenancies (the “New Order”). The New Order replaces the prior ministerial order dealing with residential tenancies, which we summarized in our blog here.

The New Order will impact Landlords and Tenants as follows:

Protection for commercial tenants, similar to what was previously announced in British Columbia, is now potentially coming to Alberta. See the Alberta government’s news release, dated June 16, 2020. On June 16, 2020, the Alberta government introduced Bill 23: the Commercial Tenancies Protection Act, which is intended to protect commercial tenants from evictions and ...

On May 29, 2020, the B.C. Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General issued Ministerial Order No. M179 (the “Order”) which has broad sweeping implications for numerous commercial tenancies in the Province. The preamble to the Order outlines one of the purposes of the Order which is that “measures are needed to prevent the eviction of small business tenants” ...

On May 19, 2020, the British Columbia provincial government amended the Property Transfer Tax Regulation, B.C. Reg. 74/88, to take effect on June 1, 2020. The amendment introduces a new exemption for foreign entities and taxable trustees from the obligation to pay additional property transfer tax of 20% on acquisition of residential property within specified areas ...

Further to our previous blog post, additional information has been provided by the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) regarding the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance Program (CECRA). Details of this information can be viewed here. 

Recapping our previous post, under the voluntary program, loans will be provided to qualifying commercial ...

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, governments across Canada have put measures in place to slow the spread, but which have also had a significant impact on business. The purpose of this post is to provide an overview of the powers available to the Government of Alberta to respond to the pandemic, and most notably, those available under the Alberta Emergency Management Act ...