Transparency concerns raised after Sask. quietly changes which info it includes on its Comparative Land Sales Database
REGINA — A recent change to Saskatchewan’s online land sales database has raised concerns about transparency.
Shaun Wildman, who owns a few thousand acres, said he went to the Comparative Land Sales Database the government maintains online and found he could no longer see who was buying land.
“I was potentially buying and selling some farmland again, and I’ve got farmland in three different rural municipalities,” he said.
“So I go in and do a search of those three RMs to see what transactions have happened in the past four months, see who bought, who sold and what prices, and discovered it changed.”
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Wildman said he was surprised because for the 10 years that he has been using the database, he was able to see all the information. He said it was important to be able to see who was buying land and how that affected prices.
The database wasn’t perfect, he said, because the majority of transactions were in the category of arm’s length, as opposed to family, but likely involved family members anyway.
Still, he said the information was valuable in guiding his decisions and let local people know who was buying land in their areas.
In December, the provincial cabinet passed an order in council that limits the information now available.
According to the government, the database uses information from the Saskatchewan Assessment Management Association, Information Services Corp. and Sask. Crop Insurance for soil classes.
“Until recently, anyone who would like the information has been able to pay $20 per search,” said an email from the agriculture ministry.
“If they were a high frequency user, they would obtain a subscription for $4,000 per year.”
They used the information to find land values for land sales, estate planning or taxation.
Now, the general public can access the site for free but no longer see purchase and vendor information and have a limited number of searches.
If they want this information they must subscribe and verify that they work in lending, appraisal or realty and adhere to their industries’ code of conduct to make sure they properly manage data.
The ministry said the database was established in the 1990s and had to be modernized to continue to offer service but also improve data security, “including protecting vendors and purchasers against the potential misuse of registry data that comes with broad access to the data when searches can be made by recent sales.”
Agriculture minister David Marit said the change came through the justice ministry, and privacy was the main issue.
“Maybe there was a whole lot of requests that were just people being curious,” he said in an interview.
“I think for the most part the lenders are fine with it. I think it’s probably the smaller users of the database that have some concerns and we’re trying to work through that right now to try to address it.”
He said realtors were also fine with the change.
That said, the government is trying to find a way to allow a fee-per-search so buyers and sellers have some access, but this fee-per-search service will still be for approved users only.
