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 London
Highway 401 widening, Tilbury to London
A multi-year Ministry project widening the remaining four-lane sections of the corridor to six. Acquisition is largely partial, taking frontage and registering construction easements along the existing right of way through Middlesex and into London.
Interchange and structure replacement
Bridge and interchange work takes more land than mainline widening does, because a rebuilt structure needs approach grading and staging room. Properties near an interchange are affected more than their distance from the highway suggests.
Municipal and utility works
City of London road widenings and servicing, and Hydro One transmission projects across southwestern Ontario, take frontage and register easements independently of the provincial corridor.
Worth knowing in London
Land for a provincial highway is acquired under the Public Transportation and Highway Improvement Act, and that removes one right owners usually have. The COVID-19 Economic Recovery Act, 2020 abolished the hearing of necessity for PTHIA expropriations, so there is no 30-day window to argue that the taking should not happen and no inquiry to wait for. The Ministry 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 rather than assuming there is nothing to respond to. None of this touches compensation. Market value at highest and best use, injurious affection to what you keep, 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. On a widening rather than a new alignment, the number that usually moves most is injurious affection: the reduction in value of the land you keep, caused by the taking of part of it and by the construction and use of the works. A strip off the front of a property can cost far more than the strip is worth on its own, through lost setback, lost parking, changed access, and proximity to a wider and closer highway.
Who can expropriate in London
- •The Province of Ontario and the Ministry of Transportation
- •The City of London and the County of Middlesex
- •Hydro One
- •Upper Thames River Conservation Authority
What you are owed does not change by municipality
The Expropriations Act applies the same way in London 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 London? Here is how to get advice.
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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.