Ramses II got his real estate license today and realized that things don’t happen just because he says so anymore, especially when it comes to real estate. In an effort to sell the Valley of Kings, he has some real issues to figure out such as ownership, dower, hidden defects, and GST, among other things. The old days of telling people what he wanted, and then getting that to happen don’t exist.
Seriously though, real estate contracts are constantly changing, and I mean constantly. Sometimes they change several times a year, and this year is no exception. This is definitely something real estate lawyers are aware of, but the layperson may not be. Keeping up with these changes and the impact of these contracts on their clients can almost be a full time occupation for REALTORS.
Where do these contracts come from?
In Alberta the Real Estate Act guides RECA (Real Estate Council of Alberta), and under its rules RECA has mandated certain content be in real estate contracts.
The Alberta Real Estate Association (AREA, I think it is just a coincidence that "area" also equates to the size of a property) works with various parties (lawyers, Realtors and so on) to provide its members with the appropriate forms, containing the mandated content.
FYI – Not all real estate practitioners are REALTORS or members of AREA. AREA is made up of 11 real estate boards and their members across Alberta.
The contracts are constantly updated
One thing is for certain: the more people that review the contracts, the more opinions on how the contracts should be made. Another thing that has been true in the past is that just when you get familiar with a certain form it changes. I wish I was kidding.
The point is: these contracts have been carefully drafted, verbiage and semantics have been hashed, rehashed, and rehashed again. It’s worth it to go over these contracts with your REALTOR, even if you’ve bought or sold real estate in Alberta in the past. In a future article, I’ll review what I think are the important items to consider.
I would like to say the many people who serve primarily as volunteers on AREA’s forms committee do an exceptional job of keeping the contracts as current as possible. Keeping the contracts current, means the contracts change frequently.
