Can I keep my house and sell the rest of my ALR farm?

Question

Accepted Answer

Only an owner who has lived on the land as their home since December 21, 1972 can ask, once, and the Agricultural Land Commission may still refuse. Land in the Agricultural Land Reserve can't be split without the Agricultural Land Commission's permission. Its homesite severance policy is a narrow route for one group: owners who have lived on the land as their home since the reserve began, and want to sell the farm but keep the house on a lot of its own. Look up the address or PID on PlaceDossier to see the record for that lot. Who can ask: The policy is for an applicant who has owned and lived on the property as their principal residence continuously since December 21, 1972, and shows it with documents. A severance is once only, and an owner who already had a subdivision approved by the Commission that created a separate lot may be refused another. The Commission's view is that someone who bought ALR land later bought it knowing the reserve's rules (our reading of why the date is fixed). It's an application, not a right: A homesite severance is a subdivision, so it needs the Commission's permission like any other (Agricultural Land Commission Act s. 21): the owner applies through the local government, and the Commission may refuse, approve with conditions, or approve something different (s. 25). The policy says there is no automatic right to one, and the Commission is the final judge of whether it is good land use. A sale has to be lined up: The Commission considers one only where the owner shows a real intention to sell the rest: an agreement for sale, a buyer's written statement of intent, a listing or similar. It may approve on condition that the rest is sold within a set time, and it lets the subdivision plan be registered only when the transfer or agreement for sale of the rest is registered at the same time. Which piece becomes the homesite: Usually the existing house on the smallest lot that suits the property, plus room for access. Where carving out the house would make the rest hard to farm, the Commission may approve a homesite lot somewhere else on the property instead. The rest has to stay a farm: The Commission's main concern is that the remainder is a workable farm parcel. Where its size or shape isn't, the Commission may refuse, require the remainder to be joined to a neighbouring lot, or require a covenant on the remainder's title, which may bar building a home on it (the Act lets the Commission hold such a covenant, s. 22). Five years: Every approval comes with an order that the homesite isn't to be sold for five years, except on the owner's death, and the owner files a written undertaking before the plan can be registered. The local rules: The policy asks local governments and approving officers to treat an approved homesite severance as they would a lot for a relative under the Local Government Act (s. 514) when applying their own bylaws, so a lot below the zone's smallest size may still be approved (our reading). The approving officer and the local government still decide their part. Lots from before 1972: This is a different thing from the exception for land that was already on its own title and under 2 acres on December 21, 1972, to which the reserve's use rules don't apply (s. 23 (1)). See applying to the ALC. What it means for a buyer: Buying the farm without the house: the remainder may carry a covenant barring a home, may have to be joined to the farm next door, and the sale may have to close within the Commission's time limit (our reading). Buying the house on its new lot: it can't be resold for five years unless the owner has died, so a severed homesite is rarely on the market soon after. Neither route is open to a later owner: a buyer can't use the policy to split the land again.

Can I keep my house and sell the rest of my ALR farm?

What the answer means

Before you buy: who to ask