Quote:
Originally Posted by Keith P.
According to an interview with Peter Polley on CBC Radio today, they sought and received a confirmation of zoning letter from HRM prior to the purchase. Only when they sought a development agreement did a problem arise, as an unregistered document not resident in the Registry of Deeds was found in the HRM archives, dating from the original sale of the lands by HRM to the developer of Ocean Towers (not the current owners) around 1970 had the stipulation that the parcel was to be a playground. Polley makes the very good point that if you cannot rely on the Land Titles system and the Registry of Deeds to find all interests relating to a property, along with a letter from HRM, what can you rely on if you are trying to do a development? Clearly a search of the HRM archives is not practical.
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Keith - That's exactly the whole point...by law, important documents that affect land MUST be registered at the Nova Scotia Registry of Deeds (e.g. easements, mortgages, MUNICIPAL LAND USE AGREEMENTS...) in order for innocent third parties to be able to become aware of them... to avoid this exact situation. The old agreement that HRM says is in effect was never registered... it was kept in their own archives and it took them 6 weeks to find it. An innocent third party purchasing the land is not bound by an unregistered agreement. This is HRM mistake # 1
On top of that, there is a simple legal concept of ESTOPPEL -
Definition - a rule of evidence whereby a person is precluded from denying the truth of a statement of facts he has previously asserted". HRM issued a Zoning Confirmation Letter in which they clearly indicated that the "legal (authorized) use" of the land was "no records on file" and was Zoned R-3 -which allows multiple unit residential buildings (e.g. apartments, condominiums). Mistake # 2.
The facts of the case are as simple as the above, and as simple as those outlined in the Chronicle Herald ad. You are not missing anything. This is pretty basic stuff - real estate law 101... none of should be wasting our time talking about this because it's that ridiculous.
I have asked the question repeatedly to HRM staff " why would you want to fight this battle ?".
I must admit that I have been following the Skyscraper blog for several years now and like the assorted comments about our adjacent Spice Condos project - from the colours, to the "moes" (actually Tony, Ricky and Marty et al) that we use to move at a tortoise like pace.... but I think that you all want a liveable, walkable city... instead of a vacant field where druggies shoot up and garbage accumulates.
Please keep posting your comments... hopefully positive, supportive ones. If you feel strongly about this, please call or email your Councillor (and the Mayor) and tell them that you want a full investigation of what happened here... do not accept the line that I keep hearing ... "it's a legal matter". That's crap. This is a "commonsense matter" or a "fairness matter". HRM is out to bury us alive in this to try to deal with the two mistakes listed above.
Peter Polley
POLYCORP Group of Companies
Proud Owner of the future site of Jazz Condominiums