@Roy N. What bugs me is that it is all 'online'. Its just not consolidated or publicly available for easy access. It is not an individuals privacy matter that a property had a notice, pulled a permit or did or did NOT pay their property taxes. The fact that you can get the information without a court order and only a 'fee' is evidence of that. Also, if anything American guard their privacy more tightly then we do in Canada but for the most part in the US, you can find out a whole lot more online regarding any property then up here.
That and the fact that Real Estate boards are still fighting rear guard actions in the courts to protect their turf by not allowing the publication of sales history is depressing....
One day.
Oren
Oren:
While I do not deny the hypocrisy of agencies using privacy as justification for not providing service, privacy laws here in Canada are more stringent than {most} in the U.S.A.
Depending on the province there will be a provincial land registry which you can access electronically or physically - frequently for a small fee.
Depending on how property taxes are managed in your province, the tax assessments will be available either through a central agency/portal (Service New Brunswick here; MPAC.ca in Ontario). In Alberta, it would appear you need to go through Municipal Affairs Alberta to obtain any tax assessment information as it does not seem to be publicly available.
In Canada, the recording of who owns what real estate is done on a provincial basis, not county or city. See link below for information regarding Ontario
You will find that it is nowhere near as 'friendly' the various / most county recorders sites in the US. As a non-registered user and without using a registered user (e.g. title search company / lawyer) you need to visit the Land Registry Office where the property is located, fill out forms, pay a fee and it will take some time to get the results; it sucks.
In addition, you will NOT find any information regarding property taxes, permits, historical sales, valuations, etc. that many US county sites provide. It may all be public records but, at least in Ontario, it is not consolidated nor easily accessible.
A little Google searching should help you uncover how the province you are interested works.
It's relatively friendly down East ... and here in NB, I can query the registry on-line (for a small fee). The only time you need to physically go to a registry office (at Service NB) is if you are dealing with a property that has not been migrated into the electronic land registry {if there have been no encumbrances or changes on title since 1996, the property may not be in the registry}.
When it comes to permit histories, work orders, ordinance or by-law violations, etc. these are still maintained at the municipal level (in the provinces in which we have operated) and privacy law will necessitate a letter of authorization from the property owner for you to access much of this information ... the exception being work-order and ordinance/by-law violations which can often be accessed though a right to information request {just do not be in a hurry}.
@Roy N. What bugs me is that it is all 'online'. Its just not consolidated or publicly available for easy access. It is not an individuals privacy matter that a property had a notice, pulled a permit or did or did NOT pay their property taxes. The fact that you can get the information without a court order and only a 'fee' is evidence of that. Also, if anything American guard their privacy more tightly then we do in Canada but for the most part in the US, you can find out a whole lot more online regarding any property then up here.
That and the fact that Real Estate boards are still fighting rear guard actions in the courts to protect their turf by not allowing the publication of sales history is depressing....
@Roy N. What bugs me is that it is all 'online'. Its just not consolidated or publicly available for easy access. It is not an individuals privacy matter that a property had a notice, pulled a permit or did or did NOT pay their property taxes. The fact that you can get the information without a court order and only a 'fee' is evidence of that. Also, if anything American guard their privacy more tightly then we do in Canada but for the most part in the US, you can find out a whole lot more online regarding any property then up here.
That and the fact that Real Estate boards are still fighting rear guard actions in the courts to protect their turf by not allowing the publication of sales history is depressing....
One day.
Oren
Oren:
While I do not deny the hypocrisy of agencies using privacy as justification for not providing service, privacy laws here in Canada are more stringent than {most} in the U.S.A.
@Amadeus Hladun, I'm not sure what you're looking to achieve, so not sure which direction to point you in. In Ontario, Realtors have access to the Land Registry System (usually a few hundred searches per year are included with their membership to their local Real Estate Board). I actually pay quite a bit to get more than 6,000 look-ups per year. If you just want to know who owns the property, in Ontario, you go to your city hall, walk into the Assessment Rolls office, sit at a free, unlocked, computer terminal, and put in the address you want to search. You'll get the owner's name(s), and the address the property tax bills are sent to (which is valuable, if the property is tenanted and the owners want to receive the tax bills directly).