386 Fees

REGULATIONS, FEES, AND FORMS

See s. 386.1 of the Act and the Land Title Act fees at chapter 32 (Land Title Fees).

PRACTICE

Exemption or Reimbursement

The minister exercises the discretion set out in s. 386(8) of the Act in accordance with the criteria in s. 19 of the Financial Administration Act, R.S.B.C. 1996, c. 138, which provides as follows:

Remissions

• 19 (1) If the Lieutenant Governor in Council considers it in the public interest to do so in a case or class of cases where great public inconvenience, great injustice or great hardship to a person has occurred or is likely to occur, the Lieutenant Governor in Council may, by a regulation of general application or applicable to a class of persons or by order related to a specific case, authorize the remission of

• (a) any tax, royalty, fee or other sum that is paid or payable to the government and that is imposed or authorized to be imposed by an enactment, or
• (b) any forfeiture, fine or pecuniary penalty that is
  • (i) paid or payable to the government or paid or payable, in whole or in part, to another person, and
  • (ii) imposed or authorized to be imposed by an enactment.

• (2) A remission authorized under subsection (1) may be total or partial, conditional or unconditional, and may be granted before, during or after the course of any proceeding for the recovery of the money and either before or after any payment of it has been made or has been enforced by process or execution.
• (3) If a condition of a remission authorized under subsection (1) is not performed, the authorization of the remission has no effect and all proceedings may be had or taken as if the remission had not been authorized.
• (4) Money required to be paid by the government under this section may be paid out of the consolidated revenue fund.

Cancellation of Charges on Foreclosure: Section 30(3)

For the purpose of calculating fees in a foreclosure, no cancellation fee is imposed on registration of the final order of foreclosure for cancelling charges registered after the registration of the foreclosure certificate of pending litigation. The registrar considers that these charges have been merged.

Easement Affecting Multiple Parcels

Where:

• (1) a single instrument purports to charge two or more parcels with an easement, statutory right of way, restrictive covenant, or covenant under s. 219 of the Act;
• (2) all of the proposed servient tenements are owned by the same person;
• (3) there is a single appurtenancy or dominant tenement benefiting from the easement, statutory right of way, restrictive covenant, or s. 219 covenant; and
• (4) the restrictions, limitations, and burdens created by the instrument apply equally to all of the servient tenements,

the instrument will be viewed as creating a single charge for the purpose of calculating fees and will receive a single serial number for registration purposes. The rationale is that uniform restrictions that benefit a single appurtenancy or dominant tenement constitute a single charge regardless of the number of servient parcels affected.

Priority Agreements

A registration fee is payable for the instrument conferring priority and for each subordinate charge described in it. The amount payable is not affected by the number of prior charges that are postponed by the instrument.

CROSS REFERENCES AND OTHER SOURCES OF INFORMATION

Refunds and Payments Out of Consolidated Revenue Fund

See ss. 16, 19, and 21 of the Financial Administration Act regarding refunds and payments out of the consolidated revenue fund.

Secondary Sources

See Di Castri, Registration of Title to Land, vol. 1, §5:6.

CASE LAW

Fees Payable by Federal Government

Where the Dominion applied for registration of land acquired through expropriation, the application fee required for registration of title was not a tax, and therefore had to be paid (Canada (Attorney General) v. Registrar of Titles of Vancouver Land Registration District, 1934 CanLII 237 (BC CA)).