The Pending Registration Queue: A Tool To Address Significant Alberta Land Title Registration Delays

The Alberta Land Titles Office (the "LTO") has long been subject to registration delays, with the gap between submission of a document to the LTO and completion of its registration historically taking one to two weeks. However, the COVID-19 pandemic and recent hot Alberta real estate market, have resulted in the average LTO registration time increasing significantly to over three months. This raises a number of difficulties for the closing of real estate and secured financing transactions.

While the gap coverage offered in standard commercial title insurance policies and the Western Law Societies' Conveyancing Protocol both remain available to parties looking to close their transactions without waiting three-plus months for registration to complete, these options may not always be feasible or otherwise apply in the circumstances. In April 2021, in an effort to offer parties another alternative to dealing with lengthy registration delays, the provincial government