REAL PROPERTY REPORTS

---

The short answer is ‘no’; that is, it is not required by law in Alberta. However, if you are subdividing as part of the sale, the subdivision authority can require an RPR and obviously if you signed a sales contract that includes providing the buyer with an RPR and compliance certificate, then you will need one.

At Highland Surveys, we recommend getting an RPR and compliance certificate and resolving any compliance issues before listing your property. This may make your property more attractive to discerning buyers, who will realize they don’t have to worry about encroachments, missing permits, or other compliance problems cropping up unexpectedly during or after the sale. It’s something you can do to help your property sell more quickly and smoothly.

Yes. Without an RPR, you cannot even be sure that the house that you want to buy is on the lot you do buy. More common than this worst-case scenario is the possibility of missing building permits, improvements encroaching from or onto adjacent properties, or utility rights-of-way over unexpected portions of the lot. You simply can’t tell what you are buying without an RPR. That being said, there are many factors involved in negotiating a real estate purchase contract and it may not always be practical to convince the seller to provide an RPR. In these cases, we encourage you to insert a clause allowing you to order an RPR and find it satisfactory, just as is standard with a home inspection.

Traditional real estate purchase contracts in Alberta have required the seller to provide an RPR and compliance certificate. However, if the seller is unwilling to pay for an RPR, there is no reason the buyer cannot order one (with the seller’s permission, of course).

No.  While we are not experts in title insurance, policies we have seen are triggered by things like encroachments or lack of a legal driveway that would easily be uncovered on an RPR. Substituting title insurance for an RPR is something like insuring your newly purchased used car against the cost of fixing the brakes, but not actually getting the brakes inspected. Since title insurance policies usually cover other types of problems as well, we are not opposed to them, but we encourage you to view them as a complement to your RPR, not a substitute.

Yes. If we have not yet convinced you to insist on an RPR when buying a house, we hope you will at least consider it in the following scenarios:

1. The over-developed/cluttered property; if the previous owner has seemingly packed as much development as possible onto the property, there are that many more opportunities for problems.

2. The older lake lot; we have seen many serious encroachment problems on older lakefront properties, such as garages built 3 metres out onto the road and huge areas of municipal land fenced in as if they were private property. You really do not want to buy a problem like this unless there is an encroachment agreement in place for it already.

3. The newly built house; most new homes in the Edmonton area have RPRs done near the end of construction so the seller should have one on file.