Welcome from the Chair 2017

  • November 23, 2017

Dear Real Property Section members:

Thanks for joining our Section or welcome back. We invite you to visit our webpage and engage with our executive. For administrative issues, please contact Crystal Lam, our CBA liaison, and for law reform, contact Gillian Carter, our CBA Law Reform lawyer.

The Section serves as the CBA’s national voice on real estate property law and legal practice and we aim to be the nation’s top association of real estate lawyers. We contribute to CBA policy and national policy, promote professionalism in our field, and respond to legislative initiatives.

Help us help you by participating in our main initiatives:

  • Mortgage Instructions Toolkit - We started this ongoing project in 2016 to lead the profession in competently meeting the demands of lenders, and to arm them to revise those demands where necessary. We selected a modular and highly cross-linked approach suitable for ongoing additions and improvements. We just rolled out Phase I in August and the CBA promoted this project effectively. During the promotion period, it accounted for 2% of the overall CBA web traffic and was the third highest CBA webpage during the marketing timeframe, following only the CBA homepage and the CBA Membership Renewal Page. Send us your comments and suggestions. What are your most troublesome issues with lenders instructions, if we have not dealt with it already?
  • Liaison with Lenders - This is another ongoing project, with a view to create communication channels, to improve mortgage instructions, support secure and fast and cheap financial transfers, and any other issues. The Canadian Bankers Association has just recently assigned a member to work with us.
  • Liaison with related organizations - We met with the Quebec Notaires and we have a representative in the American Bar Association. We are alert and open to other productive relationships.
  • Inter-provincial Concordance Table for real estate law - Ongoing project to summarize and compare key points of real estate law, added incrementally to the website via our Resources page. Please contact Ray Leclair for more information.
  • Professional Development - We share ideas for CRA to be applied provincially, and we produce webinars for a national audience. We recently participated with the Elder Law Section in presenting "Elder Law and Real Estate: Tips and Traps”. We are alert and open to how we can acquire and share resources for CRA.
  • Law Reform – The Section reviews ongoing government initiatives in the area of real property law, including draft legislation and government consultation. We recently recommended improvements to the federal relocation services contract. We are also seeking improvements in financial transfers in real estate transactions. Please let us know of any relevant issues that are national in scope, that you think the Section should pursue
  • Articles - Relevant content from the Section available at our Articles page. Content from our members are also posted on the webpage as it becomes available.
  • Essay Contest - We annually promote and judge an essay contest concerning real property law. We award a monetary prize to interest law students in the study of real estate practice and theory.

In my experience, just meeting the other participants is pretty good value. I have found this Section to have an unusually high density of nice, service minded people, with insight and knowledge about real estate. I look forward to meeting you.

Thanks,

Kevin Jaques
Chair, CBA Real Property Section