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 East Gwillimbury
Bradford Bypass corridor
A new provincial highway alignment takes whole parcels and severs others. On a farm, severance matters more than area: a strip through the middle of a field can leave the remainder awkward to work, and that loss belongs under injurious affection.
Barrie GO corridor and station works
Rail corridor expansion and station works take land from adjoining properties and impose construction easements on neighbouring land.
Municipal servicing for new development
Water and sewer trunk works to service growth areas proceed by easement across rural and agricultural land, permanently restricting building and drainage across the burdened strip.
Worth knowing in East Gwillimbury
The Bradford Bypass is being advanced under the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act, and the COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, 2020 removed the hearing of necessity for expropriations under that Act. There is therefore no inquiry into whether the taking is fair, sound and reasonably necessary. The Minister may instead establish a process for receiving owner comments, and it is worth finding out whether one exists for this corridor. None of that affects compensation, and the 30-day valuation-date election still runs.
Who can expropriate in East Gwillimbury
- •The Province of Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation
- •Metrolinx and GO Transit
- •The Regional Municipality of York
- •The Town of East Gwillimbury
- •Hydro One
- •Lake Simcoe Region Conservation Authority
What you are owed does not change by municipality
The Expropriations Act applies the same way in East Gwillimbury 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.
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General legal information about Ontario expropriation law, not legal advice. Reading this page does not create a solicitor and client relationship.