Lawyers advised to improve quality control on land title documents to accelerate processing

The Law Society of Alberta has urged lawyers to improve quality control on documents being submitted for land title processing as errors slow down turnaround times and increases the number of queued documents.

The Minister of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction reported a 25 percent rate of errors in documents law firms send to the Alberta government’s land titles office. In response, the department of Service Alberta and Red Tape Reduction has developed the “Land Titles & Surveys Common Documents and Errors: Recommended Fixes and Best Practices” guide.

Common errors include all lands not being identified on the Document Registration Request for whole discharge, the wrong forms being filled in for different discharge types, missing signatures, inconsistencies in information provided, and incorrect names being listed.

The land titles office indicated that it would reject incomplete and incorrect submissions.

The guide includes the following checklist for law firms to consult prior to document submission:

• all required supporting affidavits for the transaction have been completed (i.e., Affidavit Re: Minors, Affidavit Verifying Corporate Signing Authority, etc.), signed and commissioned;
• the Commissioner for Oaths/Notary Public has provided their printed name and expiry date;
• the Notary Seal has been affixed (if applicable);
• supporting affidavits have been amended to reflect that the document was executed by two-way video conference (if applicable); and
• the corporate seal is fully legible.

The guide urged law firms to check the original registration and titles, as well as to ensure that the right authorities are executing discharges. It also called on lawyers to check the Procedure Manual to determine the correct forms to use for specific discharges.

The guide also instructed lawyers to check when Dower is applicable and how to comply with the subject registration. It recommended using the Spin2 document search tool to match registered documents to titles.