Elias Rabinovitch Law

Peel Region Expropriation

Caledon expropriation lawyer

Caledon hosts the longest section of Highway 413, and the corridor is set to take in the order of 2,000 acres of farmland across its route. Agricultural takings are their own problem. A highway through the middle of a working farm does not simply remove acreage, it severs fields from the buildings that serve them, cuts off the movement of equipment between parcels, and can leave a remainder that no longer functions as a farm at the scale it did before.

If you have been served, you have 30 days to return your Notice of Election and choose the date your land is valued at. Miss it and the registration date is chosen for you. On Highway 413 and the priority transit projects the separate right to request a hearing of necessity has been abolished by statute, so do not wait for one. Read what to do after an expropriation notice.

This page is legal information, not legal advice. It describes the law in general terms and cannot account for the facts of your situation. Reading it does not create a lawyer and client relationship. For advice you can act on, speak with a lawyer about your own matter.

What is taking land in Caledon

Highway 413

The corridor runs 52 kilometres from Highway 401 in Halton to Highway 400 in Vaughan, with Caledon hosting the longest section. The Province identified approximately 500 properties for acquisition in its 2025 budget, designated the route under the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act on November 27, 2025, and published the final Environmental Impact Assessment Report on March 12, 2026.

Farmland severance and injurious affection

Where a corridor bisects a holding, the compensable loss is rarely limited to the acreage taken. Longer equipment routes between severed parcels, loss of field drainage and tile systems, awkward remnant shapes that cannot be worked efficiently, and interference with a farm's overall operating economics are all properly part of the claim against the remainder.

Rural utility and pipeline corridors

Transmission and pipeline work in rural Peel proceeds largely by easement. An easement leaves you as owner while restricting cultivation, drainage, and building over the burdened strip, and compensation should reflect that ongoing restriction rather than treating it as a one-time inconvenience.

Worth knowing in Caledon

Highway 413 land is being acquired under the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act, and that changes the procedure in two ways owners need to know. First, there is no hearing of necessity: the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, 2020 abolished that right for expropriations under the PTHIA, so there is no 30-day window to challenge whether the taking should happen and no inquiry to wait for. The Minister may instead establish a process for receiving owner comments, and it is worth finding out what that process is for this corridor and putting submissions into it. Second, Bill 212, the Reducing Gridlock, Saving You Time Act, 2024, bars a registered owner from applying under the Expropriations Act to adjust the date of possession for land expropriated by the Minister for a priority highway project. Neither change touches your compensation. Market value, injurious affection, disturbance damages, business loss, interest and section 32 costs all apply in full, and the section 10 election of your valuation date still runs 30 days from service of the Notice of Expropriation.

Who can expropriate in Caledon

  • The Province of Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation
  • The Town of Caledon and the Regional Municipality of Peel
  • Hydro One
  • Credit Valley Conservation and the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority

What you are owed does not change by municipality

The Expropriations Act applies the same way in Caledon as anywhere else in Ontario. What differs is which authority is taking the land and what the works do to what you keep.

  • Market value of the land taken, assessed without regard to any change in value caused by the scheme of the expropriation itself.
  • Injurious affection, the drop in value of the land you keep. On partial takings this is frequently worth more than the strip taken.
  • Injurious affection where no land is taken, under section 1(1)(b), for owners damaged by the construction of the works, and not their use, even though nothing of theirs is expropriated. Section 22 bars this claim absolutely unless it is made in writing with particulars within one year of the damage being sustained or becoming known, and nothing is served on you to warn you the clock is running.
  • Disturbance damages, the real costs you incur: moving, storage, mortgage prepayment penalties, professional fees, re-establishment.
  • Business loss, if you operate on the property, including lost profits and goodwill attributable to the works.
  • Interest at 6% per year under section 33 on the market value and injurious affection portions, running from when you cease to reside on or make productive use of the land, and where the land taken was your home, a 5% allowance on the market value of the residential part under section 18(1)(a)(i), provided the land was not being offered for sale on the date of expropriation. That allowance is payable to an owner other than a tenant; a tenant is compensated for disturbance under section 18(2) instead, apportioned by the length of the term and the tenant's investment.

Under section 32, if the Ontario Land Tribunal awards you 85% or more of the amount the authority offered, the authority pays your reasonable legal and appraisal costs, and you do not have to beat the offer outright to get there. The qualification worth knowing is that the Court of Appeal held in Shergar that "the amount offered" includes later settlement offers, not just the section 25 offer, so an improved offer raises the bar and falling below it puts costs in the Tribunal's discretion. Favourable, but conditional.

Served in Caledon? Here is how to get advice.

The first conversation is free and confidential. I act for property owners and businesses across Peel Region and throughout Ontario, and I handle every file personally.

General legal information about Ontario expropriation law, not legal advice. Reading this page does not create a solicitor and client relationship.

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