Rural Real Estate

This field of law covers a wide range of services involved in transactions, contracts, and complex real estate matters.  Your involvement with a lawyer on a real estate matter may begin even before you consider making or accepting an offer to purchase, to ensure that your interests are protected from the outset.

At its most basic, any real estate deal involves:

1. an offer made
2. the offer accepted
3. money changing hands
4. ownership officially  transferred from one party to the other at Alberta's Land Titles Office. 

While this may seem simple, there are many distinct steps and processes that must be taken before each of these can be achieved, and various factors that can affect the smooth progress of your deal.  For example:

• Problems can arise from the moment the offer is made and accepted, if both parties are not clear as to what was to be included in that deal.  Did you assume the window coverings were included?  They aren't, unless you've explicitly stated that in the contract that was signed.  What about that garden shed … the appliances … ? Are you assuming you can harvest the crop you planted, even though the land has now been sold?  Not unless you included that as part of the agreement.
•  Has the seller provided a Real Property Report (property survey), as required by law on a residential transaction, or has that matter been discussed between the parties on a commercial or agricultural real estate deal?  If you need to get a new one, you’ll have to hire a survey company at a cost of approximately $600 - $800. 
• Did you have other conditions on your deal?  Were they all satisfied before money changed hands?  If not, you can have great difficulty getting conditions met after the fact.
• Did you sign the contract without making it subject to you securing financing?  If you need the loan, and are not approved, you are still bound to the contract you signed.
• Do you know how to register the new ownership with the Land Titles Office? 
• If financing is required, that opens an additional set of steps and processes that must be completed.

These are just a very few of the many variables that can come into play in a real estate transaction.    When you engage a lawyer to manage this for you, you can avoid a maze of potentially costly problems.  We will review the contract, review mortgage instructions, review the title to the property to ensure there are no unexpected claims relative to the property, check that all tax obligations are appropriately divided between the seller and the buyer, prepare all necessary documentation, explain of all these steps and documents and answer any questions you may have .

Our lawyers offer decades of experience in:

• Purchase, sale and leasing of residential, commercial and farm real estate
• Preparation of required contracts
• Financing of real estate
• Land use planning
• Condominium development and conversion
• Subdivision
• Acquisition and development of land parcels
• Income tax strategy relative to real estate

At Martinson & Harder, those practicing in this field are:

Douglas S. Martinson

Daniel C. Harder

Aaron V. Robertson

Andrea J. Forhan