Real Property Report

A Real Property Report is an illustration or drawing prepared by a land surveyor that sets out the boundaries, structures and buildings on your property at the time of the survey.  The Real Property Report sets out the geographic relationship of your property with the Municipality’s property as well as neighbouring properties.  The Real Property Report also sets out the improvements or additions to your property including any sheds, decks, pools, driveways, fences, garages, flagpoles, and other additions typically affixed to the land.

The Real Property Report will assist the buyer and seller in knowing whether the property, or any structures or buildings contained thereon, encroach on to someone else’s land (in which case an encroachment agreement may be required) or obstruct some utility rights of way, among other things.

In order to know whether your property complies with municipal bylaws, A Real Property Report is required.  Once the Real Property Report is reviewed by the municipality for compliance, the potential purchaser is then made aware of any issues that remain unresolved.  Once issues are identified, they should be resolved by the realtors, or directly between the buyer and seller, prior to the purchase or sale of the home.  If not, lawyers will typically have to hold back funds from the seller until the issue is rectified or the buyer and seller reach some compromise.

Pursuant to a standard real estate contract in Alberta, a Real Property Report with municipal compliance or non-conformance must be provided from the seller to the buyer, either of which are acceptable.  This means that the property, structures, and buildings either comply at the present time (compliance) or it means that they did comply at some time in the past but due to a change in existing rules and regulations, etc, they no longer comply, thus making it non-conforming.

A standard real estate contract in Alberta also requires that the provided Real Property Report be one that shows all of the “current improvements”.  If you have an old Real Property Report from when you purchased the property, and you have not added any buildings or structures to your property since, then your Real Property Report will be deemed good and sufficient for the purposes of selling your home.  It is irrelevant how old your Real Property Report is; the seller is only required to provide a Real Property Report that shows the current improvements even if the Real Property Report is 25 or more years old.   However, for those buyers who are obtaining a mortgage to assist with financing the purchase of the home , their lenders will typically require them to provide a Real Property Report that is no more than 20 years old (every lender is different).  In this case, the onus to obtain an updated Real Property Report will typically fall on the buyer rather than on the seller.

If the seller removed structures or buildings from their property since the last Real Property Report was obtained, then the Real Property Report is still deemed to be good and sufficient for the purposes of selling their home as the Real Property Report will still show the state of current improvements being included on the old report.  The only time the seller will have to obtain a new Real Property Report is when they add or rebuild structures or buildings to the property since the last Real Property Report was obtained.  In that case, a new Real Property Report showing “current improvements” will be required.