Can the government expropriate my land in BC?

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Yes, a public body an Act empowers can take land without the owner's consent, but it must pay market value, disturbance damages and reasonable costs, most of it in advance. BC's Expropriation Act sets one process for every body an Act lets take land, the Province, councils, school boards and TransLink among them. It can't stop a project the body has the power to build, but it sets the notice, a hearing on how much land is needed, the payment, and the costs the owner can claim. Look up the address or PID on PlaceDossier to see the record for that lot. Who can take land: Any person an enactment empowers to expropriate, the government included, takes land under this Act, whose process prevails over the other Act's (ss. 1, 2 (1)); no one may dispute in its proceedings the body's right to expropriate (s. 4 (2)). Expropriating means taking land without the owner's consent; an owner who agrees to transfer the land but not the price can have the court set the compensation as if it had been expropriated (ss. 1, 3). Railways under the railway Acts and takings under the Water Sustainability Act follow this Act only as those Acts say (s. 2 (3)). The notice on title: The body serves an expropriation notice on each owner on the title with a copy of the Act, posts a sign on the land (outside a municipality it may publish the notice in a local newspaper instead) and files the notice in the land title office (s. 6). From then the registrar registers few new instruments on the land and deposits no subdivision plan changing its boundaries (s. 7 (2)), so a title search shows it. The body's people may enter in daylight to survey, test the soil and appraise, and pay for damage they cause (s. 9). Objecting: the inquiry: An owner may ask for an inquiry in writing to the minister and the body within 30 days of being served, with reasons, except where the land is for a highway, railway, power line, pipeline or water, sewer or drainage line (s. 10). The inquiry officer asks only whether this land is needed, or whether another site, less land or a lesser interest would do, never whether the project itself is (s. 14), and may refuse a request based only on compensation (s. 11). The approving authority then approves, modifies or rejects the taking (s. 18). Cabinet can skip the approval and the inquiry in an emergency or to avoid undue delay (s. 5). The advance payment and possession: Within 30 days of the approval the body must pay the owner its estimate of the compensation, with every appraisal and report it rests on; the appraisal states the zoning and the land's highest and best use (s. 20 (1), (3)). Taking the payment doesn't settle the amount (s. 20 (10)). Within 30 days after paying, the body files a vesting notice: the land vests in it, free of most charges, and it may take possession, unless the owner agrees otherwise or a court sets other terms (s. 23). A body that abandons the taking before paying owes the damages it caused and the owner's reasonable legal and appraisal costs (s. 19). What compensation covers: Market value, what a willing buyer would pay a willing seller on the date of expropriation, plus reasonable disturbance damages: the costs and losses the taking causes, and the reasonable costs of moving to other land, legal and survey costs included (ss. 31, 32, 34). Market value leaves the project out: no rise or fall from the planned work, the prospect of the taking or a rezoning made for it counts (s. 33). An owner living in a home they'd get the home owner grant for, and not selling it, gets 5% more on up to half a hectare (s. 38 (1)); a tenant on a lease under a year gets 3 months' rent and moving costs (s. 38 (2)). Part of a lot: Where part of the land is taken, the owner is also paid the drop in the remaining land's value from the taking and the works, and personal and business losses (s. 40), less the value of any benefit the works bring the land that's left (s. 44). An owner whose land is hurt by a public work though none of it is taken may claim injurious affection in court, within a year of the damage or of learning of it (ss. 41, 42). Costs, interest and time limits: An owner may send the body bills for reasonable legal, appraisal and other costs as they're incurred, before the hearing (s. 48). If the court awards more than 115% of what the body paid, the body pays the owner's costs (s. 45 (4)); interest runs on the difference, with 5% a year more where the payment was under 90% of the award (s. 46). An owner who doesn't apply to the court within a year of the advance payment is taken to have accepted it (s. 25), and the taking itself can't be challenged once the land vests (s. 51). If the land isn't needed: Land the body decides within 2 years of vesting that it no longer needs must be offered back to the owner first, at the market value the court sets if they can't agree (s. 21). What it means for a buyer: A filed expropriation notice shows on the title search; a project still being planned shows nowhere on title. Who gets the compensation when land under a notice is sold is for the contract to say (our reading; ask your lawyer). A report lists the major projects within 10 km and the power lines and pipelines within 200 m, and names the provincial roads along the lot.

Can the government expropriate my land in BC?

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