A backlog with Alberta Land Titles May be impacting anyone who purchased or sold a home in the last couple of months.
As of March 14, Alberta Land Titles was working on files it had received on November 28, 2022. Because it is three and a half months behind, anyone who sold or purchased a property in 2023 may have an issue receiving their tax forms from the Town or County.
Colin Swap, the Director of Corporate Services with Brazeau County, says the challenge for them is sending out tax notices. These notices are required to go out in May each year. However, if the title hasn’t been transferred those notices may go to previous owners and the new owners might be unaware of them.
“If anyone has recently purchased a property, we wouldn’t have an updated address within our system,” he says.
Swap says lawyers and others who process real estate documentation have been helping by contacting them to let them know when a sale has been finalized. He says being able to update the address will help them when it comes time to send out the notices.
Leah Sadegian, the Finance Manager for the Town of Drayton Valley, says they will also have an issue with sending out tax notices.
“The notices on file will be the old owners, not the new owners, because everything is far behind,” she says.
Both Swap and Sadegian say the risk for new owners is interest on unpaid taxes. Sadegian says the Government of Alberta offered a property tax late penalty reimbursement in 2022 for this reason, but she’s not sure if they will be offering it again this year.
“That program was offered last year,” she says. “We’re not sure if it’s being offered again this year. But it would be up to the owner to apply for that directly.
John Dempster, one of the owners of Remax Realty, says this backlog isn’t anything new. He says about a year ago, Land Titles was behind about five to six months.
Dempster said he attended a Broker Manager meeting in May 2022, where the director of Land Titles spoke. Dempster said everyone was told that Alberta Land Titles was at an all time low in terms of employees when the last housing boom occurred.
Since then, they’ve been working to increase their number of employees to help deal with the backlog.
“They had added another 40 percent at that point,” says Dempster of the meeting, “and they were looking to add an additional 20 percent more after that.”
Dempster says the director explained that part of the issue is that the system being used by Land Titles is antiquated. While they are trying to bring in a new system, it will take a few years to get it up and running.
Colin Webb, a partner with Sabine Webb, says the backlog can make things a bit more challenging when purchasing a home right now.
