Pending Land Transfer Fee Increase

Last week's Alberta Provincial budget announced a pending increase to the Alberta Land Title Office's registration fees for both transfer of land and mortgage registrations.

Currently, the fees are:

For mortgage registrations – $50 + $1 for every $5,000 in mortgage amount, plus

for land transfer registrations – $50 + $1 for every $5,000 in the purchase amount.

While the fixed component of the fee remains the same, the variable portion is merely doubled. So, the new amounts are:

For mortgage registrations – $50 + $2 for every $5,000 in mortgage amount, plus

for land transfer registrations – $50 + $2 for every $5,000 in the purchase amount.

So, for a typical purchase of, say, $500,000 with a $400,000 mortgage, the amounts are slated to go from:

$280 (i.e. [$50 + $400,000 / $5,000] + [$50 + $500,000 / $5,000]), to

$460 (i.e. [$50 + 2 x $400,000 / $5,000] + [$50 + 2 x $500,000 / $5,000]).

In the grand scheme of things, this is a pretty insignificant amount given the thousands and tens of thousands of dollars in fees charged by other Provinces for land and mortgage registrations.

It is not yet clear when the fee increase will take effect.

These fees are collected by the buyers' lawyer as part of the conveyance process.