News release

Nova Scotia Improves Land Registry

Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations (Oct. 2000 - March 2014)

?SERVICE N.S./MUNICIPAL RELATIONS--Nova Scotia Improves Land Registry


Nova Scotia’s land registry system is getting a major overhaul, under a new Land Registration Act introduced today in the legislature. The act would modernize the property-registry system to make it easier to use and more efficient.

"The current registry system is outdated, cumbersome and prone to error," said Angus MacIsaac, Minister of Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations. "The changes we are proposing today will bring our registry system into the 21st century and ensure that we keep pace with other Canadian jurisdictions."

Mr. MacIsaac said his department is acting on requests from the business and legal communities, and property owners.

Under the proposed Land Registration Act, the government would guarantee ownership for any property registered in the new system. This is not possible under the present system. Property records would be converted to an electronic format that would be accessible through any Service Nova Scotia and Municipal Relations office or eventually over the Internet. Title searching would be faster and more convenient, and the information would be more reliable.

Nova Scotia’s land-registry system currently depends largely on paper records stored at 18 Registry of Deeds offices across the province. Paper records can be easily misfiled and they deteriorate over time. The land assets recorded in this fragile system have an estimated worth of $46 billion.

Documents now register properties under the owner’s name. The bill proposes that each parcel of land would be linked to a Property Identification number, called a PID, and registration would be keyed to the parcel of land.

If passed, a one-county pilot project would be operational by the fall of 2002, with the entire province moving to the new system by the end of 2003. Properties would migrate from the old system to the new as they are sold, mortgaged or subdivided into three or more lots.

Title searching is now a cumbersome process and presently can only be done in the county where the property exists.

"On average, we estimate that the time needed for an average title search will be cut in half," said Mr. MacIsaac. "Plus, there would be no need to travel to a specific county; a search could be initiated at any registry office."

Catherine S. Walker, president of the Real Estate Lawyers Association of Nova Scotia, was part of the review team that helped the government develop the legislation. "Nova Scotians deserve a property system that provides a process for achieving certainty of title, and the new Land Registration Act will do that,” she said. “This legislation is forward-thinking, incorporating historical principles of land ownership in Nova Scotia with the efficiencies of both cost and process inherent in a modern system. We applaud it."


FAST FACTS:

  • Today’s registry contains more than 19 million pieces of paper, and each county’s records are stored at the Registry of Deeds office in the county.

  • There are approximately 103,000 registry transactions every year.