Sent on behalf of the Federation of Ontario Law Associations (FOLA)

     

March 25, 2020

In our continuing commitment to keep you up to date, we have been communicating regularly with all interested parties.  Please circulate this information to the real estate lawyers in your area.

Teraview^® and Land Registry Operations

You can expect some changes in the operation of the Land Registry Offices.  We urge you to be patient, to explain to your clients the uncertainties and delays which may occur and to be prepared with tools like the Lawyer’s Delayed Closing Escrow Agreement prepared by the Working Group on Lawyers and Real Estate, which can be found here. 

This is the unofficial information we have received:

• Teraview^® and ONLand are still up and running and will continue to stay up during all normal hours! 

• All physical Land Registry Offices have commenced reduced hours 9:30 to 12:30. If you need to do anything in paper you should verify the status of your local LRO.
• Some physical LROs (mostly in Eastern Ontario) are still closing ad hoc. For the moment there is no work-around, but efforts are ongoing. The situation is unpredictable at best so lawyers and clients should be prepared to adapt. The list of unanticipated LRO closings is growing, not shrinking. Unfortunately, there is no guarantee that non-convert deals will be registered.
• For the time being it seems the volume of registrations in Teraview^® are up, but certification rates are down to a crawl. Starting tomorrow, March 26^th we expect that the LRO’s will move to much more stringent social distancing so even lower certification rates will likely result.
  

Law Society Program

The Law Society is holding a free audio-only program on Friday, March 27 2020 from 12pm-2pm entitled Your Real Estate Practice and the COVID-19 Pandemic: What You Need to Know Right Now.  You can register for the program here.  (ADDITIONAL NOTE - they can only accommodate so many at a time, but there are multiple replays-Mar 27, Apr 1,2,3, Betty) 

 If and when we receive further information of interest to the real estate bar, we will pass it along.