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You may have a Registered Deed to a plot of land and think you own it, well, think again. The New Brunswick Land Registry System was set up in the year 2000. All land titles in the province were entered into this system. Well, these smart people only went back 40 years. They refuse to recognize land titles that are older than 40 years. This seems especially true when a person of modest means is involved.

The registry office people may tell you otherwise but in practice that is what they do. If you have a clear deed to a piece of land and this deed was registered (as required) with the province 40 or more years ago, just try to sell your property and see what happens. It doesn't matter that your family paid taxes on the land every year and that you and your family used and occupied it for 55 years. You will find that your lot is legally nonexistant. Your legal request for redress will be refused by the people who administer the system. They don't make errors or omissions; at least they won't admit they do. They protect the system and if the little people lose in the process, so be it. If they sense that you cannot afford to challenge them, they will simple refuse to recognize your rights because it is expedient to do so. That is New Brunswick Justice ‘à la Land Registry'!

Putting a personal face on the problem, in 1953 my parents purchased a garden plot of land (4064 sq. ft.) abutting the house plot (6000 sq. ft.). The deed was registered. Taxes on the property have been paid every year from 1953 to 2008. My father was a common laborer and my mother was a home maker for her 15 children. My father died in 1976. My mother died last June and named me as executor of her estate. The will stipulates that I must sell her properties and distribute the proceeds among her children. When I tried to sell the property in question I discovered there was a record of the deed, but not in the all powerful Land Registry System of the province. Thus, the property did not legally exist and I could not sell it. The house and ‘garden' lots are in a commercial zone. If the lots are separated the value of the property is greatly diminished.

Every day the sale is delayed is costly to me (insurance, hydro, taxes, services, interest). With the assistance of a lawyer I asked to have the property recognized and placed in the Land Registry System. I was refused. There is a legal requirement that older titles must be promptly registered provided there has been no conveyance involving the title. This is applicable in my case. That is the law. It is illegal to refuse my request and they know it. No matter the legality, the registered deed and the tax receipts, the people at the registry office will not recognize what is mine.

More than one month into the process my costs are mounting while they procrastinate and suggest ‘solutions' that are beyond me and have nothing to do with my rights. As a matter of fact, the lot is now a part of a neighbor's deed. Someone sold what was not his to sell and the provincial system has accepted and registered this. Of course my neighbor and I each have title to the same plot of land. Are we both paying taxes on it? Ambiguous! Unfair even!

My request is simple: correct your errors and omissions and give me legal recognition for what is mine so I can get on with my business. A word to the unwary: If you or your elderly parents have a registered deed to a property and you think that is a guarantee of ownership, think again. Check it out and fight for your rights if you can afford to take on the system. Be prepared to pay, you may have to spend all that the property is worth (maybe more) to get justice in New Brunswick.

Richard Michaud

Grand Falls