If more people (especially the Property Owners, Journalists, and a lot of you) would bother to actually read the Expropriations Act, they would realise that many of the complaints surrounding its perceived unfairness are plainly incorrect. The Act offers a series of protections and rights to the Owners, especially surrounding compensation, which is unsurprisingly, the main point of contention. Below are a series of excerpts from the act (in italic) which showcase that Owners have costs covered in terms of appraisals, legal fees, disturbance, business relocation, construction monitoring, and construction impacts themselves:
Compensation paid for:
(A) the market value of the land;
This is the primary point of contention where Owners accuse Metrolinx of not having accurate appraisals, as these negotiations are not public and the property market is in constant flux, it is hard to judge if this is true or not. Fortunately, these Metrolinx appraisals & lawyers need not be the only ones involved, as the expropriation act grants the below:
Where the amount to which an owner is entitled upon an expropriation or claim for injurious affection is determined by the Tribunal and the amount awarded by the Tribunal is 85 per cent, or more, of the amount offered by the statutory authority, (meaning if the statutory authority is not already overpaying) the Tribunal shall make an order directing the statutory authority to pay the reasonable legal, appraisal and other costs actually incurred by the owner for the purposes of determining the compensation payable, - meaning Owners can get their own layers and appraisals at the expense of Metrolinx.
(B) the damages attributable to disturbance;
It is also argued that expropriation payments miss out on covering the disturbance of being forced to relocate, which is indeed a very valid type of loss to claim. Fortunately, the act (which their lawyers will follow) offers the below:
(The expropriating authority shall pay to an owner other than a tenant, in respect of disturbance...
(a) where the premises taken include the owner’s residence, (i) an allowance to compensate for inconvenience and the cost of finding another residence of 5 per cent of the compensation payable in respect of the market value of that part...that is used by the owner for residential purposes
(b) where the premises taken do not include the owner’s residence, the owner’s costs of finding premises to replace those expropriated, provided that the lands were not being offered for sale on the date of expropriation; and
(c) relocation costs, including, the moving costs, and (ii) the legal and survey costs and other non-recoverable expenditures incurred in acquiring other premises
Beyond moving costs, the Act also offers the below on the matter of business relocation:
the expropriating authority shall pay compensation for business loss resulting from the relocation of the business made necessary by the expropriation
(C) damages for injurious affection; and
Injurious affection is defined as: the reduction in market value thereby caused to the remaining land of the owner by the acquisition or by the construction of the works thereon or by the use of the works thereon or any combination of them, and (ii) such personal and business damages, resulting from the construction or use, or both, of the works as the statutory authority would be liable for if the construction or use were not under the authority of a statute,
This applies to places where there are partial expropriations, wherein only the land needed is taken. It means that Owners are entitled for compensation to any actual damages occurring as a result of the Works taking place on the lands. Furthermore, considering that point A includes coverage for all costs incurred in determining the scope of compensation required, the Expropriations Act thus allows for Owners to have engineers, surveyors, and environmental specialists monitor the nearby construction to determine any and all damages incurred, and then charge to Metrolinx the damages + the costs of all the specialists it took to quantify them.
Expropriation is not as unfair a process as is described. Unfortunately, many seem to prefer going to journalists rather than the experts to whom they are entitled.
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