Real Estate Legalese

Access Road

The Road Access Act was enacted in 1978. It came about to give a bit more and unified meaning to the implied grants and right-of-way by necessity.

Making it more difficult for owners to put up barriers or in other ways making access difficult.

Under this Act these roads can be closed temporarily for repairs, or once for 24 hrs per calendar year. The Courts are empowered to judge the necessity or duration.

It should be understood that this is not a cure-all for all sorts of vague access situations or erratic actions by owners or users.

There is no substitute for clearly defined boundaries, accurate description of rights-of-way and properly registered easements on title.

What many don't realize is that access by water is still access and can have a direct bearing on what a person considers accessibility.

The access issue is never as straight forward as it seems. Make sure you get your Real Estate professional to look into these things before you make any kind of decision at all.

Easements

Easements should always be registered on title.

It is a description setting out the rights of someone over someone else's land. It is not uncommon to come across al sorts of vague descriptions of easements in historical documents. When involved in any kind of Real Estate transaction it is in the interest of everybody involved to make sure that there is a proper description of the metes and bounds (where and what size) and preferably clearly indentified on a survey.

The official Agreement of Purchase and Sale used in Real Estate transactions considers the possibility of existing easements.

Commonly recognized easements are for instance Hydro, Municipal water and Sewer.

Requisition Date

The Agreement of Purchase and Sales, the document through which you make an offer on a property, provides for a specified date to complete the title search. That date is called the Requisition date.

The Requisition Letter that the Purchaser's Lawyer sends to the Vendor's Lawyer states all the pariculars to ensure that the title when transferred is "free and clear": no unregistered liens, no unregistered encumbrances of any sort, non resident parties to the property,etc.

It also includes -so called- non-title records searches : outstanding workorders, zoning conform., status of real property taxes, etc.

The whole point of course is that we get what you set out to buy and do not, will not anticipate any unpleasant surprises.

Statement of Adjustments

A statement itemizing the financial history of a Real Estate transaction. This includes such items as the deposit that was made,down payment, balance due on closing, mortgage amount. It also lists the out of pocket costs the lawyer had on your behalf ( the disbursements) such as, zoning reports, city tax certificate, utility searches, registering the deed, registering the mortgage etc.

Concessions, Lots etc.

It was Governor Simcoe who divided Ontario in Counties, Townships, Concessions and Lots.

The County boundary usually followed a natural divide (river, lake) but often was a straight line through the bush. The Counties were then didvide into smaller units, the Townships. Many Townships were square or rectangular.

Each Township was subdivided into Concessions, a strip of land measuring 100 chains (a actual chain 66 feet in length), making the distance from one concession to the next 6600 feet in length.Between the two concession is always a road allowance 1 chain in width (66ft)

The Concessions were then subdivided into Lots into opposite direction. 20 lengths of chain would the width of a Lot (1320 feet).

Every five Lots another road allowance ( 1 chain = 66 feet ) was created.

A Lot would then be 1320 x 6600 feet giving a total of 200 acres.

Sectional System Township is a system of land division involving the creation of 1000 acre sections. In this system the Lots are 20 by 50 chains or 100 acres.

Restrictive Covenants

A restrictive covenant puts some limitations in place on what you can do or not can do with a property. Some subdivisions have restrictive covenants regarding parking certain vehicles on the street, or even in your own driveway (Tractor-trailer or mobile homes).

It is always prudent to find out if there are any restrictive covenants in place. If you ask they have to disclose that.

The fact is that in a standard Agreement of Purchase and Sale the vendor gives no warrant that the present use (complying with the zoning) will be legal if the new owner decides to something different, or may contravene a restrictive covenant