Alberta’s property rights advocate has recommended that provincial legislation on adverse possession of real property, also known as squatter’s rights, be abolished.
Lee Cutforth made the recommendation in his 2014 report, which he filed in June and which has yet to be dealt with by the new NDP government.
The legislation allows people to claim ownership of land if they have been in open possession of it for 10 or more years.
“The real problem with adverse possession, even once you get beyond the civil dispute between two private parties, is that it kind of affects the integrity of the land titles system because it allows … the title to be compromised and land to be hived off from the title without any notice of registration on the document,” Cutforth said Aug. 27.
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Landowners and creditors rely on the provincial land titles system to determine ownership, but adverse possession can compromise that, he added.
“To me, it was just a problem because it allowed an unregistered interest or an unregistered claim on land to take priority over the registered ownership,” he said.
“It’s more important to maintain the integrity of the land registry.”
A case involving two landowners near Cardston, Alta., brought the legislation to public attention late last year.
One rancher, who had legal title to the land and had paid taxes on it since buying it in 1999, lost ownership of about 10 acres to a neighbour who had been using the parcel for 10 years.
The case went to court, where a more complex situation of land use and past history was outlined, but adverse possession legislation was applied in the outcome.
Doug Carle, a lawyer from Taber, Alta., involved in the case, said then that adverse possession was “an archaic concept that causes nothing but hardship and flies in the face of our entire land titles system.”
Alberta is the only province to retain such legislation, which dates back to British common law. There have been about 100 court cases involving squatter’s rights in the province.
A private member’s bill brought to the Alberta legislature in 2012 sought to abolish the law, but it died on the order paper after two readings when an election was called.
Cutforth referred to that failed bill in his report.
“Perhaps it is time to reintroduce and pass such a measure in order to strengthen the integrity of the registry system and the reliability of the title record,” Cutforth said in his report.
“This would serve to preserve the protection that the land registry system is intended to offer landowners and the rights they hold in their property.”
The results of his recommendation to abolish adverse possession in Alberta law are yet to be determined.
Under the legislation that established the Property Rights Advocate office, the government must refer the recommendations to a committee within 10 sitting days of the report’s filing.
That step is scheduled to take place sometime in October, when the legislature resumes sitting. The committee will then have 60 days to consider the recommendations and report back to the legislature.
barb.glen@producer.com
