A closer look at the Report on Common Property, Land Titles, and Fundamental Changes for Stratas: Should the Strata Property Act provide that a lease of a fixture that is common property or of a common asset entered into by the owner-developer may not exceed five years?

This post is the first of a series highlighting key recommendations in the Report on Common Property, Land Titles, and Fundamental Changes for Stratas. For other entries in the series, click here. Brief description of the issue Despite general provisions imposing duties and restrictions on owner-developers, there are still specific concerns about transactions involving common property. These concerns relate to long-term leases tying up a strata’s common property (items such as enterphones and security cameras often Read more…

Pension Division Review Project Committee continues examination of commuted-value transfer, tackles private annuities at June 2019 meeting

At this month’s meeting, the Pension Division Review Project Committee continued its review of commuted-value transfer and began to examine private annuities. Section 115 of the Family Law Act applies to division of a pension with benefits determined under a defined-benefit-formula provision, if the pension is a “local plan” and it “has not commenced.” The section gives the spouse who has become a limited member under the plan a number of options. One of these Read more…

Elder Abuse Response Presentation at the Canadian Elder Law Conference: Interview with Laura Tamblyn Watts

This post is part of a series highlighting key themes and presenters from the 2019 Elder Law Conference. To see the other posts in the series, click here   Introduction We are so excited that Laura Tamblyn Watts, the Chief Public Policy Officer at CARP (Canadian Association for Retired Persons), will be presenting at the 2019 Canadian Elder Law Conference. CARP will be joining us this year as a silver level conference sponsor. Many of you will recall that Laura was the Read more…

BCLI recommends reforms to the Strata Property Act’s legal framework for common property, land titles, and fundamental changes

In the Report on Common Property, Land Titles, and Fundamental Changes for Stratas, the British Columbia Law Institute’s Strata Property Law Project Committee recommends amending the Strata Property Act and the Strata Property Regulation to shore up three key areas that help to define strata properties as interests in land. Strata plans are at the heart of this report. Even though the reach of this report is more expansive than a systematic examination of strata Read more…

Valerie Le Blanc Gives Keynote Address at Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria Event

On June 13th CCEL Staff lawyer Valerie Le Blanc gave the keynote address to the Inter-Cultural Association of Greater Victoria’s event to launch their project on the value of aging across cultures. Below is her keynote address.   Keynote Address With the Canadian Centre for Elder Law, a good amount of my time is spent researching and examining how the law impacts older adults, and the issues that aging and ageism raise for older adults Read more…