Elias Rabinovitch Law

City of Hamilton Expropriation

Hamilton expropriation lawyer

The Hamilton LRT is the largest single source of expropriation in the city. Metrolinx is acquiring property along King Street, Main Street and Queenston Road for the alignment, its stops and its construction staging, and published notices of expropriation covering dozens of Hamilton properties in December 2024, with more following the Main Street two-way conversion that council voted to accelerate. Most acquisitions are negotiated, but Metrolinx moves to expropriation where agreement is not reached or where it needs certainty on a possession date.

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.

647-547-6734 elias@eliasdefence.ca

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 Hamilton

Hamilton LRT alignment and stops

The B-Line corridor takes full parcels at stop and substation locations and strips of frontage along the rest of the route. Corner properties at planned stops are affected disproportionately, because a boarding platform needs more land than running track does. Compensation disputes on these have already reached the Ontario Land Tribunal.

Main Street two-way conversion

The conversion added properties to the acquisition list beyond the original LRT footprint. If you were told earlier that your property was not affected, that advice may predate this expansion and is worth re-checking.

Construction easements and staging land

Temporary working easements over yards, parking and loading areas are registered along the whole corridor. They are time-limited rather than permanent, but they can make a commercial property unusable for the duration, and that loss is compensable.

Worth knowing in Hamilton

The LRT takings are ordinary Expropriations Act expropriations, which means the rights the provincial highway projects remove are all intact here: 30 days from the Notice of Application to request a hearing of necessity, and 30 days from the Notice of Expropriation to elect your valuation date. The head of compensation that matters most on this corridor is business loss. King and Main carry a dense strip of owner-operated retail and service businesses whose trade depends on the door they are standing behind, and a business that cannot reproduce its revenue at a new address is entitled to more than the cost of the move. Tenants have their own claims here, separate from the landlord's, and they are the group most often left out of the process.

Who can expropriate in Hamilton

  • •Metrolinx
  • •The City of Hamilton
  • •The Province of Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation
  • •Hydro One and Alectra Utilities

What you are owed does not change by municipality

The Expropriations Act applies the same way in Hamilton 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 Hamilton? Here is how to get advice.

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

647-547-6734Expropriation practice

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

Further reading

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