The Calgary Flood brings about new regulations for Albertans

Photo from the Calgary Sun

Our hearts sank when we heard the news of flooding in Calgary and region. Everyone was impacted - businesses, banks, people buying homes in the flood zone...the rain certainly took its toll.

As a result, Alberta introduced new legislation "to create new flood-mapping standards that will have long-term implications for industry professionals and consumers." (RECA - Real Estate Council of Alberta blog)

What kind of implications? We've summarized how the new legislation impacts consumers below:

1. If a home was impacted by the flood, homeowners who want future flood protection have to apply for financial assistance to fix the damage now with financial assistance from Alberta's Disaster Recovery Fund

2. "Homes and businesses currently in flood ways, and those that use Disaster Recovery funds for flood mitigation, will have a notation on their land title to ensure that future owners of the property are aware". This means:

a. future purchasers should be made aware by real estate professionals that a home is in a marked flood zone

b. purchasers will have to know from sellers if there was any flood protection work done to the home

c. the title to the home will have a notation indicating the home was flooded (this is new too)

It will also be interesting to see how individual banks will view future financing for the purchase (or refinance) of  homes in the flood zones. This is something, as mortgage professionals, that we will be here to help our clients navigate through.