Being a REALTOR® gives me access to awesome tools and resources for both my clients and myself which I love to share. I recently received an article from the Calgary Real Estate Board (CREB®) about subdivisions and selling property that had some great information to pass along.

For those unfamiliar, subdivision is the process of splitting a parcel of land into smaller sections with separate titles with the Land Titles Act having rules regarding the process. For instance, the Act states it is illegal to sell a section of land that has not been officially subdivided and registered at Land Titles.

As your agent, reviewing the title for my seller and buyer clients is one of the many services I provided and I will flag any issues I see with the title or the subject property.

You may have seen properties listed with a disclaimer such as “subject to municipality on approval of subdivision”. There are risks to both sellers and buyers in these kinds of transactions such as:

• The application or transfer of ownership could be rejected at Land titles and may result in legal consequences for the parties
• Each application requires a few stages which may take a significant amount of time, months even, to receive a final decision on the submission

CREB® also provided some great tips for sellers who are interested in successfully having their land subdivided and sold:

Contact a professional
Speak to a professional and/or contact your local planning authority to get a better understanding of how long the process will take, what it will entail and how much it will cost.

Start early
Successfully completing the subdivision process can take anywhere from three months to over a year. If your client intends to market and/or sell any portion of land once it has been subdivided, they will need to start this process well in advance of the proposed sale date.

Be prepared                          
The amount of information needed to complete this process will depend on the complexity of the application, but usually the more information provided on features such as existing property lines, proposed plans, existing and proposed water/sewage disposal plans, locations of existing buildings etc., the better.

Inform the neighbours         
Although the support of neighbouring landowners is not strictly required, if public hearings are held, they may be invited to speak and provide their opinions about any subdivision application. Having their support, if possible, might be helpful for the applicant.

Connect with me if you have any questions, have a subdivided property to sell or for any of your real estate needs. Visit me on Facebook and Google!