How about getting $4.5 million for land that’s worth $2.6 million on the market? Or 1.4 million for lots with a municipal assessment of $276,000?
We bet you would burst out laughing before uncorking your best bottle.
This is what is currently happening with owners who are “lucky” to be expropriated by the State. For several years, the courts have granted them compensation that no longer has any common measure with reality. The cases mentioned above, very real, bear witness to this.
Last Thursday, the Legault government came to sound the end of recess with a bill aimed at profoundly modifying the Expropriation Act. Cheer. The Prime Minister made a personal commitment to act on this and he kept his promise.
This bill promises to bring back to Earth the stratospheric indemnities that are currently granted when the State must move people or businesses to protect a wetland, build a REM or run a power line, for example.
The changes will be particularly valuable for municipalities, which struggle to meet their land protection obligations without embarking on a long, uncertain and costly process each time they have to interact with a private landowner.
One may have the impression that the government of Quebec, itself a major expropriator, is both judge and party in this case.
But the idea is not to give full powers to the state so that it can cavalierly expel any owner from their home. It is simply a matter of offering fair compensation to the expropriated, according to guidelines that prevent abuses.
In short, it is about correcting an imbalance.
The origin of the current problems lies in the fact that the expropriated persons are not compensated on the basis of the market value of their property, but according to the vague legal principle of “value to the owner”.
Basically, we calculate what the land could be worth in an imaginary world where all dreams are allowed.
A city that would like to acquire a woodlot to meet its environmental obligations, for example, does not have to pay the fair market value of the woodlot to its owner. She has to pay what this wooded area could one day be worth if the zoning were changed and a shopping center was built there.
Lawyers have a phrase for that: “best and most profitable use”. Currently, it is interpreted to the extreme. The result is that any person or company whose land is coveted by the state has an interest in going to court to try to obtain the jackpot.
In fact, it has become so interesting to be expropriated in Quebec that many owners now plead “disguised expropriations” when zoning changes affect their land, hoping for juicy compensation.
Of course, the expropriated must be able to defend themselves against the abuses of the various levels of government, which are sometimes real. But this almost systematic recourse to the courts clogs an already overwhelmed justice system.
Some cases turn to bickering. This is the case in Rosemère, where a promoter is suing the City, the MRC and the Montreal Metropolitan Community for the tidy sum of $278 million over a former golf course valued at… $13 million.
By specifying the rules of the game and by marking out in advance the compensation that can be paid in the event of expropriation, we can think that the Legault government’s bill will bring predictability and reduce recourse to the courts.
If the changes are approved, benefits will be calculated based on market value, as is the case in other provinces. To this, we can add compensation if the expropriated person has to move his property or close a business, for example.
Specific markers are provided for agricultural land, which is the subject of unbridled speculation in Quebec.
The bill will now be scrutinized and we will see if there are any flaws. But overall, we must welcome this necessary intervention which sounds the end of the party for the expropriated.