55: Simplifying Real Estate Law with Montgomery Miles and Stone Law Firm's Peter Borszcz

Episode 55: Matt and Taylor are joined by Peter Borszcz. Peter is a Lawyer and partner at Montgomery Miles and Stone Law Firm from Kelowna, BC, working with clients, developers and businesspersons in the acquisition and sale of real estate and business assets. Peter is also a legal-update instructor for the Real Estate Council of British Columbia and teaches both Commercial Legal Update and Residential Legal Update to real estate licensees across the province.

 

Peter is here to discuss: → The BC short-term rental (STR) legislation and what to consider if you're looking at purchasing leased land on a First Nation. → The ALR land swap, the difficulties in land development, and the future of independent wineries in the Okanagan. → And how bureaucracy is making real estate more complicated than it needs to be and why you need to have legal expertise in a real estate transaction.

 

Montgomery Miles & Stone Law Firm Website: www.mmslawfirm.ca

Peter Borszcz Email: [e-mail]

Peter Borszcz LinkedIn: @PeterBorszcz

 

The Kelowna Real Estate Podcast is brought to you by Century 21 Assurance Realty, the gold standard in real estate. To learn more, visit: www.c21kelowna.ca

 

Matt Glen's Website: www.mattglen.ca

Matt Glen's Email: [e-mail]

Matt Glen's Instagram: @mattglenrealestate

 

Taylor Atkinson's Website: www.VentureMortgages.com

Taylor Atkinson's Email: [e-mail]

Taylor Atkinson's Instagram: @VentureMortgages

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
to the Kelowna Real Estate Podcastonce again.
Taylor, what's on mind?I am depressed as usual, Matt.
You've lights in the horizon, Ithink.
Not because I'm talking to youtoday, but I don't know.
I just feel like the field goal isalways changing.
Yeah.
Sometimes for the good, sometimes
for the bad, depending on yourperspective, I guess.
But a couple of things tohighlight, because we did speak

(00:21):
about this in our show today,which was an amazing show.
got Peter Borsch.
Awesome Yeah.
Peter's a lawyer here in town.
Pretty heavy hitter.
Very good at large transactions inreal estate and kind of mixing in
business.
So yeah, very well known and
really good guys.
great podcaster, it turns Yeah.
Yeah.
It was an awesome chat with him,
but that's not why I'm Yeah.
that's one of the bright spots in

(00:42):
Taylor's life.
Yeah.
I'm frustrated with thisassignment fee.
Yeah.
Like that flipping tax is
essentially, if you're buying apre-construction condo and it
doesn't close for a few years andyou make a profit on it if you
assign it before you close, oreven when you close and then you
essentially flip it, there's a taxon it.
So why I'm frustrated with that isbecause this is how developers get

(01:04):
projects off the ground in thefirst place.
I don't want to say fundraisingcapital, but basically selling a
portion of the project.
They have to sell to get the
financing.
They have to hit their sales goals
to get the financing to even makethe project go To get their
construction financing.
Yeah.
And we need more houses.
So we should be incentivizing any
part of the market.
It should be the pre-sales that

(01:24):
are building more Yeah.
And we're not saying like, okay,
yeah, we don't love like flippingthese assignments to make a
massive profit, which doesn'treally happen so much anymore.
Years ago it did.
But now most of these projects,
you need to put 20% down.
So it limits a lot of people.
It's not an investment whereyou're going to be making a
massive amount of money, but itlimits people's exit strategies.
So if somebody buys this and theproject's delayed by a year, year

(01:46):
and a half, and they want to buy adifferent house, I know there's
exemptions for it, but it reducespeople's confidence to buy these
projects in the first place, whichreduces capital for developers to
use to get construction financing,which is going to limit the amount
of units that come on the market,which is going to screw affordable
housing.
Yeah.
So they're just like they'recoming out with these laws without

(02:08):
thinking about it.
if assignment one, honestly, I
feel like we need to talk aboutthis now so that can maybe get
changed because, yes, people arespeculating and can make money on
assignments.
But like they're not taking a unit
because this is not a unit that'sbuilt.
This is in the future.
You are funding future houses
being built.
So why would we take away the
incentive to do that?I feel like there should be
incentive to do that, not do that.
There's already an assignment fee

(02:29):
usually from the developer.
So people aren't really
incentivized to buy these, to flipthem.
It's a strategy that was usedmaybe 10, 15 years ago, but
they're coming out with these lawsway too late.
In addition to that, so we didspeak about something else in the
podcast and I'll highlight it alittle bit more.
So I was referring to ScottButler.
He's a developer.
Don't know him personally.
We'd love to have him on the show,but just off of his LinkedIn

(02:52):
posts, he says on a $400,000condo, it's in the neighborhood of
$100,000 in tax that developerspay.
So private businesses built justover 250,000 houses in Canada last
year.
Some simple math says that's over
$7.3 billion in tax revenue thoseprivate developers would have paid
to the government.
First, the housing accelerator
fund of $4 billion.
So what I'm getting at here is the
government's coming out with theseheadlines like, hey, we have this

(03:15):
housing accelerator fund of $4billion and we're trying to help
out housing affordability.
Meanwhile, they're collecting $7.3
billion from developers that areactually the ones that are trying
to build these units that wedesperately need.
So where's the extra $3 billiondeficit gone to?
Don't come out as the good guy ifyou're not.
Well, I guess you could just makeit $4 billion less in taxes and it

(03:38):
would have the same effect paiddirectly to the developers to
build more.
That's what you're saying.
Yeah.
The point of this is like, luckily
I'm not a developer, but if I was,I would probably quit at this
point.
With these regulations coming in,
the volatility that they'reinfusing is just insane.
I have to talk about this.
I was going to wait till another
episode, but I just had to bringit up now.
I feel like this conversation hasjust set me up too perfectly.

(04:02):
Beck and I have been talking aboutputting a basement suite in our
house, right?We have a perfect house.
We don't really use the basementthat much.
Put a suite in.
So we've noticed that BC had the
secondary suite incentive to buildyour house.
It's a $40,000 forgivable They'llloan.
pay up to half of your renovationto make a legal suite So we've in.
noticed that BC had the secondarysuite incentive to build your It's
house.
a $40,000 forgivable loan.
They'll pay up to half of yourrenovation to make a legal suite
in your house, give you aforgivable loan up to $40,000.

(04:23):
Then I was looking at the termsand there's an income maximum.
So you have to make under $209,000per year household to qualify to
add a suite into your home to getthis incentive.
And I just thought, why does itmatter what the household income
is for the suite?Like the goal should be to build
more housing.
What possible factor does the
income of the person building thehouse have to do with that?
Right?It just doesn't make any sense.
And then when I was talking toyou, Taylor, before this, you're
like, well, that only reallyaffects T4 employees because you
could be like a major developerwith 15 buildings in Kelowna, but

(04:43):
they're all owned in LLCs and youdo your taxes and making 90 grand
a year.
You could qualify.
But if you're like a policeofficer or like a teacher and your
household happens to make overthat, you can't qualify.
The goal should be to build morehouses.
Why is the income of the personeven relevant?
You know, it's kind of funny.
It like a very simple strategy,
but more houses, units available.
It doesn't matter who's making

(05:04):
money off of it, really.
Just like, let's build some units.
Yeah, let's get some units built.
Yeah.
Everyone knows that we need morehousing.
That's unfortunate.
I was really looking forward to
renting your basement out.
Yeah.
I don't know, man.
We're very strict on the tenants
we choose.
I don't know if you pass the bar.
have good news.
I am stoked on this.
This lifted me up.
Yeah.
So Airbnb legislation, we all knowkind of is coming into play.

(05:26):
From my hometown, West Kelowna, wecame out and had the exemption on
specific properties because theirvacancy rate is outside of that
threshold.
Yeah.
So we'll see how that actuallyplays out in terms of, you know,
asking for that exemption from theprovince.
But thank you, West Kelowna.
You know what's funny?
I was thinking about this, is thattourists are going to now be more
in West Kelowna because they can'tcome to Kelowna in their Airbnb.

(05:49):
So like, it's actually kind ofnice for West Kelowna because
they're going to have more of aspotlight now.
Yeah.
I mean, it's kind of funny
because, well, it's not funny, butthey're really penalizing some
people that are in Kelowna.
And then that opportunity just
grows somewhere else.
That's kind of the whole point of

(06:09):
like, they need to stop trying toregulate a lot of these things and
just let the market self-regulatebecause we come out with this.
And now like those properties inWest Kelowna probably just went up
in value by 50,000 bucksovernight.
And the ones in Kelowna devalue.
Like, how is that fair to anyone?
Unless you're in West Kelownaprobably just went up in value by
50,000 bucks overnight.
And the ones in Kelowna devalue.
Like, how is that fair to anyone?Unless you're in West Kelowna,

(06:29):
you're laughing.
laughing.
You know what's funny is peopleare already going to West Kelowna
to buy in WFN land.
Yeah.
Because they could serve you andbe, just all of West Kelowna.
So WFN is probably like, oh, well.
Yeah.
You know?So it's kind of funny, but yeah,
you got some friends on thecouncil there too.
So.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I mean, some more exciting
news we're going to be having on idon't want to give away too much
but we're getting into thepolitical podcasting as well so
some pretty big names coming onwhich we're excited for our name
is getting some other excitingnews matt yeah speaking of name
getting out there yeah taylor andi are now officially professional

(06:51):
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(07:12):
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(07:36):
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So thank you.
And let's do this.

(07:57):
Yeah.
Welcome to the show.
for joining us.
Yeah.
Thanks for coming.
So yeah, we just like to connectyou with our listener real quick.
Kind of what's your perfect Fridaylook like?
What makes you productive and whatdo you do for fun leading into the
well i'm a big swimmer for thosepeople who don't know so my
perfect friday probably startswith an hour long in the pool i
love to start a day that way andthen coffee with my dogs and then

(08:18):
off to the office so that's kindof how i roll what are they 50
meter lobster 50 meters on certaindays of the week so like that's
monday wednesday friday yeah yeah25 the rest of the awesome yeah
i've never done the 50 i've done alot of the 25 but i want to get
there lake swim that is a bucketlist thing to do here in the

(08:40):
okinawa yeah yeah i was registeredfor covid and i finally got to do
it last year so yeah it was a goodway to start nice cool and coffee
i gotta ask are you like a one cupof coffee kind of guy because i
know we met a few weeks ago andyou were not drinking coffee in
the yeah basically by about 11o'clock i gotta cut it off okay
trying to figure out my ownstrategy i think i'm just running

(09:00):
on coffee lately so so if we askquestions taylor has a plan as you
get older the strategy changesthat's all's all I'm going to say.
Yeah.
Okay.
to say.
Yeah.
Okay.
Well, let's dive straight into it.
We want to be efficient with yourtime.
You're a wealth of knowledge, sowe want to utilize it.
Short-term legislation that'shappening May 1st, Property Rights
Association, I think arefundraising about $150,000 to pay
legal fees to fight Is going to doit?
Like, is there a leg to stand on?Is it worth going down that

(09:24):
avenue?Well, first and foremost, you have
to understand that the province ofBritish Columbia has the
constitutional authority to goahead and make what rules it wants
with respect to property, right?That is purely within its purview.
And if it wants to regulatemunicipalities whose power is
derived from the provinces, theycan do that.
So nothing the province has donekind of on the face of it is
unconstitutional.
Now, the question is like, have

(09:44):
you then had some sort of like defacto taking, kind of like an
expropriation type of thing fromthese owners who kind of bought
with the expectation?Well, you know, there's a whole
bunch of body of law on likeupzoning and downzoning.
So, you know, does that argumenthave some kind of ability to
succeed?Maybe if you found the right judge

(10:04):
at the right time, but would I beinvesting in that?
Like if I was a gambling man,would I gamble on that?
No.
Yeah.
Right.
Like my thought on that is I
wouldn't be investing in thatwould you get hired for that
project would you be interested infighting that no not yeah okay
there's better uses of my time howdoes a court care about public
opinion on something like thiswould they even zero not at all

(10:27):
all right yeah because if thecourt cared about public opinion
like it would just be a popularitycontest right murderer guilty
innocent innocent.
I know.
Yeah, okay, fair enough.
So yeah, I guess the popularity
comes to legislation itself.
Exactly.
Yeah.
And that's the legislator's job is
to like, that's what the majorityof the people want.
So let's put that through.
But you know, the Constitution is

(10:49):
there to protect the minority.
And there's this balancing of
rights that courts go through.
But in this case, like, you have
to look at it and say, well, youknow, the province has a
justifiable reason for making thislegislation of putting on 16,000
units or something that they sayback onto the market.
So, you know, they're trying toaddress what is a real problem.
So it's going to be hard for thecourts to say that there isn't a

(11:12):
valid legislative reason for thatto exist.
And short-term rentals are fairlynew to the legal landscape.
You got to remember, law movesreally slowly.
Yeah.
So like Airbnb and VRBO, like
they're creatures of the lastdecade.
Yeah.
And Yeah.
I think I looked into this.
I think it was 2009 or 10 that
they came in.
So like, yeah.
Yeah.
Brand new.
Yeah.
So. So, yeah, I would be surprised

(11:33):
if the court did anything thatfundamentally altered the
legislation as it exists.
And for, I guess, developers or
developments that are going on orpeople that are in contracts that
haven't closed yet, I mean, mostof the disclosure statements, I
believe, basically state that it'sout of their hands, that it's not
an issue that they can worryabout.
Is that kind of the stance is juststay the course, you've got to
close on the property anddevelopers have to finish their

(11:55):
projects.
And we're all just kind of stuck
in this together.
I think that's going to be the de
facto stance for most people.
I think there are projects out
there that if they are really ahotel, but they started as a
strata, they could be a stratahotel.
Like there is room in thelegislation to say, you look at
these places like Fidel Sol,Walnut Beach down in the Soudios,

(12:16):
where they are stratified hotels.
That's the way that they operate.
They have reservation systems.
And Big White has lots of examples
of this as well.
But, you know, in the areas where
this is going to apply, those area couple of good ones.
So does a new development actuallymove in that direction?
Do they change?Really, what you have to change is

(12:36):
the owner's ability to possess anduse the unit exclusively.
If you take that away from theowner and say, now there's a
rental management covenant hereand rental management bylaws, and
like the Cove, we're going to bemonitoring who goes in and out,
management bylaws and like thewe're going cove, to be monitoring
who goes in and out, then you havethe ability to kind of change what
you are.
And now you are a hotel and now
you can have your short termrentals.

(12:57):
But that's going to change yourproperty management.
That's going to change youreconomics.
And wouldn't something like that,wouldn't they have to do a new
disclosure statement at thatpoint?
And then at that point, you couldjust Absolutely.
Because now you're introducingthings in the strata bylaws that
are entitled that weren'toriginally there.
Yeah.
And does that constitute, and this
would be for a judge to decide,does it actually constitute a

(13:19):
fundamental change given rise to anew right of Yeah.
Well, then you need everyone onboard too, right?
Or whatever the percentage is,it's not like every owner is going
to want to say, okay, I don't wantany part of this and just give it
over to a company.
Well, remember that a developer
before they file that strata plancan make whatever changes to the
bylaws they want subject to thefundamental change, right of
rescission type of mechanism.

(13:41):
Now, after we have owners in
there, if we're talking about anexisting building that's already
functional and full of owners,yeah, absolutely.
Then the ownership group itself isgoing to have to vote to make a
change and you're going to havevoting thresholds Seamless segue,
if I may say.
So then going into the leased
land, you're allowed to still runshort-term rentals on leased
lands.
Do you see that ever changing or,
you know, the owners of the leasedland, West Bank First Nations, are
they looking at this like this isa great opportunity for them to

(14:02):
build those type of properties?You know, I think different First
Nations are going to takedifferent approaches to it
depending on where they'relocated.
So if you look at West Bank inparticular, yeah, that ability to
say, hey, we're going to allowshort-term rentals on our lands
because we're not subject to theprovincial authority, that makes a
lot of sense for them.
But if you look at another band
like Tawasin, you know, maybe not,right?
Like they're going to have theirown housing issues.

(14:23):
So I think it's going to be veryFirst Nations specific.
And the government has crafted thelegislation such that the First
Nations could opt in if theywanted to, right?
Much like smaller municipalities,they can opt in if they to.
But then we go back to thepolitical arena where they could
just decide that they don't wantto do that if they don't like it

(14:43):
in the future, right?Like the First Nations.
If they say, yes, right now, Iwant to have short-term rentals.
They might not always want that.
That was kind of my leading
question is, okay, what is therisk of buying on lease line right
now?Like if somebody sees an
opportunity, there's no committedconfirmation from West Bank for a
nation that this is going to lastindefinitely.
One of the generalized risks ofbuying on leased land ever, you

(15:05):
know, this is always a risk, isthat you don't elect your
governors, right?Your governor is banned in council
of the particular First Nationupon whose land you are leasing.
And, you know, it's not likemunicipal council or the
provincial government.
You elect those people.
Those people are elected by bandmembers unless you are a band
member.
So they can make whatever land use
decisions that they want to make.

(15:25):
West Bank in particular is a
self-governing band.
So, you know, they have certain
autonomy from the federalgovernment to do what they wish.
So those risks exist anyways.
So you could end up with
something, and I'm just looking atlike the Burn Co site, for
instance, right?Like you can end up with like, you
know, semi-industrial land rightnext door to a residential land.
That can happen.
You can end up with really tall
retaining walls that are justthere.

(15:47):
And you're like, okay, well, howwould that happen?
That's within the band's authorityto do that.
So I think that's just generalizedrisk when you were to enter onto
First Nations Yeah.
Like, is that why the values of
leased land is slightly lower?Like, I know we're just talking
about this offer a little bit, butthere are lenders, but it's not
like you have an abundant amountof lenders that are willing to go
into mortgages on leased land.
And if they do, there's some

(16:07):
stipulations, like the lease hasto be prepaid.
It's not going to be amortizedmonthly or, you know, it has to be
the duration of the amortization.
Like you can't have a lease up for
renewal in five years, like, orthe equity has to be there.
So they just protect themselves, Iguess.
But our lenders just incrediblyintelligent and they know that

(16:28):
there's more risk and like peopleare actively actively because
we're kind of in a pocket, right?And like the Okanagan has, I don't
know the percentage, but aabsolute ton of leaseland when
you're looking at across Canada.
So it just seems more of the norm
for us.
But if somebody else was buying on
leaseland, like as a lawyer, whenyou're reviewing it with them, do
you kind of acknowledge like, hey,there is a small risk here that

(16:49):
you should of?The lease really depends on the
particular development you'rebuying into.
So they are all very, very, verydifferent.
Unlike, you know, you buy asubdivided parcel with a home on
it in Sycamuse versus one inKelowna, they're going to look
nearly identical if they're on feesimple land.
But if you buy on a subdividedlease parcel on Little Shuswap
Indian Band versus a subdividedleasehold parcel on West Bank

(17:09):
First Nations, they arefundamentally different things in
terms of whether that lease isprepaid or not, how long the term
is, what the band's options are atthe end of that lease or what the
band usually does at the end ofthat lease, what the band usually
does at the end of that lease,whether there's title insurance
available, whether there's alender available, whether that
lease gives the lender the rightto foreclose on that lease, right?
They are completely differentlegal animals because your

(17:30):
property rights are determined bythe lease document itself.
And so whenever you buy in leaseland, you're kind of getting to
know that property just in and ofitself.
You can't generalize and say,well, I bought in Sonoma Pines.
So when I go down and I buy inSpirit Ridge and Assoy, it's just
going to be the same.
Yeah.
But they're completely different.
Two great developments, by the
way, but completely different.
So it's just something to bear in

(17:51):
mind.
I think that lenders want to have
policy and they want to be able toreally look at what they're
lending And I think on.
that lenders want to have policy
and they want to be able to reallylook at what they're lending on.
And I think that's why you seevariability in those lenders.
Those lenders that have taken thetime to examine and get

(18:12):
comfortable with the developmentare going to lend in it versus
lenders that, you know, like theymay not have the time or the
capacity to assess their risk.
So it's really easy to go to the
lowest common denominator and say,we're not taking any fair.
Yeah.
So the reason why we're talking
about all this is because ofaffordability.

(18:33):
Obviously, I don't expect you toanswer this whole question, but
I've heard you talk about thisbefore about your take on
affordability is reducing redtape.
What are your thoughts on thisthing?
It sounds like that's the routethat you go.
Well, it's not just my opinion.
BCRA published on this as well.
You go, you go back to kind oflook at what Auckland has done and
said, okay, if we had reduced thebureaucratic burden to get
projects done, we get moreprojects done and we increase

(18:55):
housing supply.
And there's some really good
evidence that that's a good thing,you know, short of being like a
benevolent dictator and being ableto just say, I'm going to fix the
problem, which, you know, I don'tknow if I would sign up for that
job.
I've heard a few people that
would.
Yeah.
You know, short of having thatkind of power, you're working with
all these various levels ofgovernment.

(19:16):
And it's not just government, butit's also different ministries,
different utilities.
Like you think of everything that
goes into getting a project ofeven modest size off the ground,
there's a ton of hoops to jumpthrough.
A recent example that is a littlebit of burning a bee in my bonnet,
I guess you could say, is that'sdue to fires.
And, you know, you look at thetime to issue demolition permits
between RDCO and District of WestKelowna.
Yeah.
District of West Kelowna, for some
reason, couldn't get their headaround trying to issue demo
permits to people that had theirhouse burned down.
RDCO got it done pretty quick.

(19:37):
You know, I would like some sort
of explanation as to why there isa fundamental difference between
those like same area, samedisaster.
Yeah.
And these are people that we
should really actively be helpingas a community and saying like,
look, we want you to be like,here's a whole bunch of free
insurance money that's going tocome into our community that's
going to help all the trades out,get everybody building, facilitate
economy, all that stuff that wewant.

(19:58):
So why can't we get them a demopermit at the same speed that rdco
did and i'm not saying don't doyour job because like rdco clearly
is doing the exact same job as thecity of west the but it took city
of west colonna in a lot of casesthat i know about two to three
times as that's actually a greatpoint my mechanical guy is down

(20:20):
west side road rdco and like i sawhim two months ago it was just
just before Christmas and he losthis house.
I was like, Hey Mark, how's itgoing, man?
Like how are things?Like, yeah, we're going to be
pouring foundation pretty quick.
I was like, what?
Like, how do you even get thatdone?
And then meanwhile, there's otherpeople in West Kelowna that are
like, I'm still living in anAirbnb because we can't even get

(20:43):
our insurance done yet.
Like it's wow.
So this is a tough question, butyeah.
Like what would you do?What's the easiest red tape to
remove?Is it like staffing to wow so this
is a tough question but yeah likewhat would you do what's the
easiest red tape to remove is itlike staffing to get those
permitting done or just i knowwe've spoken about this before on
the show like we have these publichearings everything's kind of done

(21:08):
and then when legislation comesout by the city or there's a new
development that goes up peopleoppose it and then we're kind of
back to these public hearingswhat's kind of the easiest way to
streamline some of that stuff ithink there's a lot of little
things that you can do like whatdoes have to go to public hearing
what does not should be definedand defined clearly i think for

(21:29):
lower end development and i wouldsay like everything under a
fourplex that should be a one-stopchecklist shop with the
municipality right we?We did that in Kelowna really
successfully with the RU7properties.
They're like, if you're buildingsomething that kind of looks like
this, on lots that kind of looklike this, we're going to stamp
that and you can go ahead andstart building.
That created a ton of housing.
So we just have to follow the

(21:50):
models that we know work and domore of that.
And it's not like reinventing thewheel.
It's not rocket science it's justlet's streamline those small
projects because if we can createyou know four units where there
used to be one wonderful i don'tthink anybody would like my
benevolent dictator solution whichwould be like there's all those
farms that are in the middle ofcolonna i would just build a whole
bunch of apartment buildings youknow sim city's like boom boom
boom that was actually going to beone of my questions.

(22:11):
Like, okay, so we just have topreface it.
Like, we're sorry, West Kelowna.
We're like, ALR, we're sorry.
But fair point.
And we've spoken about this
before.
I've beaten this drum.
much around.
You show those places and you look
at the fields across Springfieldand you're like, there is many
pedestrians walking right pastthere.
It's right by shopping and it hasbeen the home for geese for as
long as I've lived here.
It's insane yeah it's insane that
that is like that still i guessbut the question is then like why
like does the alr exist well imean like i understand why and

(22:32):
like i think there's a lot ofpositive things that come out of
it but can we not make someexceptions does it not make sense
so for people who don't know alris all about food security.
Yes.
And BC being able to produce
enough food to feed its ownpopulation.
of there has been eras in the pastwhere it's like if we're very
dependent Because, on importscourse, of we could be vulnerable
as a population.
food, So that's why the ALR
exists.
And I think it's a you you want

(22:54):
good, to plan know, for worst casescenario sometimes.
Yes.
part about BC is we're a bunch of
islands, right?We're either islands surrounded by
water or islands surrounded bymountains in the sense of
unbuildable area surrounds a lotof British Columbia.
Fly over this province.
It's stunningly beautiful, but not
a lot of places for people to liveor crops to grow.
So the ALR kind of makes sense inthat context.

(23:16):
But when we look at how wefacilitate housing for people and
where people live, it's not justKelowna.
You drive into Richmond, there'smassive tracts of ALR land.
And the ALR used to have amechanism for land swap, where
they would say, all right, we willtake land out of the ALR if you
could provide better landsomewhere else in the province
that has similar or betteragricultural capacity.
And so the ALR land swap rulesprovided an incentive for

(23:37):
developers to go out and find afarm that wasn't in the ALR, fix
it up, put on good soil, literallytruck it on, make this thing good
to grow in all the ways and say,all right, I got 10 acres out in
Falkland and I'm going to swapthat in and I'm going to get out
my 10 acres.
I think it was two to one, five
acres back here in Kelowna.
And so the ALR was good with that

(23:57):
because like, okay, well, netgains all over the place.
Then they said, no, no, you no,can't do that anymore.
And they stopped that.
And in kind of the era we're in,
I'm i'm wondering well maybe weshould be able to do that in terms
of doing those things again so doyou know why they stopped because
people were doing it all the timetoo often and they thought that it
was all resulting in a loss ofagricultural capacity too often

(24:18):
yeah i mean like i get it there'sjust certain plots of land
specifically that are like yeah inthe center of Kelowna.
Well, you used to also getagricultural land if it was
surrounded by a urban center.

(24:38):
Once it got surrounded, you could,
again, make an application.
Can't do that anymore.
Yeah, okay.
That just makes sense to me.
just another example of additionalbureaucracy standing in the way of
good land development.
democracy, standing in the way of
good land development.
And I don't think anybody wants to
see like, nobody wants to see likea big windfall for a farmer who
bought a piece of farm property.
But similarly, I don't want to see
the government, you know, rackingin tons of money into housing and
the government to become a housingsupplier, right?
Like from my point of view, likegovernment involvement just makes

(25:00):
things more expensive.
It doesn't make things less
expensive.
So how do we facilitate less
government, more supply shouldkind of be the focus all up and
down the spectrum.
And I think Intel government
really kind of takes a step backin more ways than one.
I think we're going to be facing alittle bit of an uphill battle

(25:22):
Yeah.
Yeah.
There was a developer.
I would actually like to reach out
to him at some stage and have himon.
And his real simple math was forabout a $400,000 unit, like a
condo, they spend close to$100,000 worth of taxes, whether
that's tax on supplies or GST, etcetera.
And he's like, if we could reducethat, that's a huge chunk off for

(25:44):
affordability.
So instead of giving $100,000 on
every unit to the government andthen have the government stop
trying to implement these housingprograms to then make housing
affordability, the real simplesolution is just trim it off at
the source.
It is interesting the government
could do things that are free.
Like you said, the RU7 rezoning,
which was super successful, but itwas almost too limited that it
made those houses super expensive.
They just need to apply that.
Exactly.
If you did that everywhere, which
I think that...

(26:04):
Well, they've done that now.
Yeah.
Essentially, right?
With the MF1.
Yeah.
The provincial poor houses onevery lot.
It makes sense.
It just, now we just need a
reasonable interest rates to putthat into work, right?
So, Yeah.
I mean, it's still a pretty
difficult task for a homeowner totake on.
Like it's intimidating to say,right, so I own this and I
understand that it'll be more likesmall-time developers, but as a
homeowner to say, right, I own myseven, eight, $900,000 home.

(26:27):
I'm gonna tear it down and build afourplex.
It's a pretty daunting task forsomebody to take on.
So you're stuck kind of givingthat back to developers who are
going to want to make a margin onthat right and if they're going to
be taxed massively but that'sdeveloper's perspective they have
to run their business i completelyunderstand and you look at how

(26:48):
some developers have operated andit starts to make a lot of sense
this is why so many developersthey cluster towards the luxury
market and they cluster towardsthe luxury market.
And they cluster towards theluxury market because of the
margins.
And they need the margins because
of the time involved indevelopment.
So the longer you have to hold aproperty that you have to pay
interest, you know, when you're infor development permit
applications, the longer you haveto do that, the longer you have to

(27:10):
hold that property, the moreexpensive it becomes for you as a
developer, just online cost alone.
So you have the developers that
are around a lot.
You look at everything that's gone
up in downtown Kelowna.
It's luxury development.
holding periods that arenecessitated by all of the permit
applications and assessments andarchaeological and everything else
that has to go into actuallygetting one of these things off
the So yeah well i think that'sthe other thing is like our

(27:32):
expectations as canadians are tohave a large single family house
that you can park your garage andif our expectations and we shrunk
our square footage and we didn'thave ports and granite and
stainless, then yeah, like housingwould be slightly more affordable.
true though.
When you go to like McKinley or
Mission or all the newsubdivisions, they're all like

(27:52):
gigantic, super luxury houses.
And it just seems like it'd be
really hard to build threebedroom, two bathroom houses,
which everybody wants.
The economics aren't there.
Well, and when there's enoughmargin, because most of the value,
like not most, but a lot of thevalues in the land, because you
can build out, right?So who's going to want to buy a
$400,000 piece of land and build a$300,000 structure on it?

(28:14):
Yeah.
Like it doesn't make any sense for
a developer.
Yeah, no, exactly.
It makes sense if you can get fourunits and you can get it done in
12 months.
Yeah, speed for sure.
And where these guys tend to makemoney is where they can go from
building to building to buildingto building to building.
Yeah.
And, you know, you look at a great
example of this being done reallywell in Kelowna, folks.

(28:36):
It was either phase one or phasetwo at the ponds.
And this is back in 07, 08.
They came in and built homes that
were at the time, I think,$100,000 to $200,000 less than the
average home price.
These were small two and three
bedroom laneway homes and justwent from one to the next one to
the next one.
And it was a great development for
a time when, yeah, it was hard tobuild.

(28:57):
That developer did a great job.
So where do you see Kelowna going
then in the next 10, 15 years?Like density?
Are we going to get more towers?Are we going to get fourplexes?
Or like our single family homes,are they going to grow obsolete
because of affordability?Well, City of Kelowna has already
threatened to stop zoning singlefamily, right?
That was on the table.
And then there was a big outcry.

(29:17):
And so then that came off thetable.
I don't think it's good governmentto say that we're going to stop
doing something.
You have to do it one way.
I think we need a variety ofhousing types.
I think that's a good way to go.
But, you know, personally, I'm
more of a fan of Paris thandowntown Vancouver.
Like, I think you can have alovely city with mid-rise towers

(29:42):
that is absolutely beautiful yeahbut that's an aesthetic thing in
terms of you know what i wouldprefer but you know does it mean
density yes i think the rightdensity in the right place makes
sense but density makes sense whenyou also have public transit that
works right we have a city wherehow do you get around in the city

(30:02):
without a car maybe there's goingto be you, autonomous robot cars
soon because that would reallyhelp help Well, got scooters
right?now, Yeah.
autonomous robot scooters would beWell, great.
Yeah.
That would help too.
But I really think that Kelownahas grown so fast in a very short
period of time.
I'm one of the few people that
were born here.
So I remember this town I think it

(30:23):
at, was 40 or 50,000 people.
You there's know, no Coquihalla.
The airport has two gates that youjust walk up to.
It was a very, very differentfeeling town then.
And, you know, of course, mygrandparents remember it when
there was a ferry that you tookacross the lake.
That's what happened when theywere here.
So it was a very different feelingplace.
And you look at the growth fromthen to now, the growing pains
aren't unexpected in that context.
But nonetheless, everybody's here.

(30:44):
Everybody's here to stay.
So how do we now facilitate the
right infrastructure in the rightplaces to make it all happen
without, I'm just going to saypoor Asunios here, like a 37% tax
increase.
What is up with that?
That's crazy.
Well, that's a water system,
right?Like that's a town who grew really
fast and, you know, they don'thave wells to support the people
that are there and the people needwater and it's a desert.

(31:06):
Yeah.
So you got to do what you got to
do.
So I understand the rock and the
hard place without water, youdon't have a town.
is Yeah.
You said something there, like the
comparable of Paris.
And there was a guy that wrote an
article and did a video on it.
And it was for North America.
I think it was under four storiesor no, over four stories.

(31:28):
You had to have two stairway, twoemergency exits in North America.
And he's like, every other countryin the world, you can go up to six
stories and you're allowed thisone staircase and it allows the
architects to make like threebedroom units and more windows.
And you started to watch thisvideo of him describing it and he
made a lot of good points.
And I guess it was, you know,

(31:48):
earlier in the 1900s, it wasmostly because of, you know, fire
issues that we were having.
But he said, you know, now we've
evolved, our building materialsare better.
Our response from emergencyresponders are much faster.
Like we don't need to have thosekind of limitations so yeah maybe
we could turn this into paris ifwe kind of revamped some of those
by the way with the eiffel wellthe other thing to consider is

(32:08):
what you can actually build withright you know one of my favorite
places to teach legal update isactually prince george because the
licensees up there are awesome bythe the way.
So shout out to the storage guysif they're But like engineered you
can build like eight story timber,buildings with engineered six,
seven, timber.
Yeah.
That, you know, is great on theenvironment, supports local
industry, all that stuff.
So, yeah, like to really look at

(32:29):
that stuff and to say, well, wecan do this a different way and to
support, you know, good mediumdensity would be wonderful in this
with engineered six, seven,timber.
Yeah.
We should have started with this,
but can you tell us a little bitabout your business then?
What, like, instead of justhammering you with like politics
and how to save us, what's yournormal transaction?
Do you help on the residential,commercial?
dictator.
Yeah.
Listeners that are listening, whoshould be reaching out to you?

(32:52):
of the partners of MontgomeryMiles and Stone, a law firm here
in Kelowna.
I am a business and real estate
lawyer.
So all of my clients kind of meet
at the intersection of businessand real estate.
the intersection of business andreal estate.
So that means I do a lot of workwith winery owners and liquor
store owners and dentists andmedical professionals and, of

(33:13):
course, developers and people whoare building real estate,
industrial landowners, shoppingcenter owners, kind of all
comprise my portfolio of clients.
So if people are kind of at that
intersection and that's whatthey're looking for, they have a
business that involves a lot ofland holdings dealing with leases
and covenants and utilities andthose types of things that's what
i do i don't do any litigation soi'm not involved in any kind of

(33:35):
like expropriation or you knowshareholder disputes or those
types of things i like to focus onthe building aspect of things and
not the tearing apart so how don'tdo litigation it's because you
just don't want to?I don't have time.
Yeah.
I guess it's too busy No, mostly
because I don't have time and Imuch prefer the kind of the build
it together type of thing.
Yeah.
I went to law school.
I have a lot of friends who are

(33:55):
lawyers, but this is my come as ashock to most is that like the
litigation process itself isextremely adversarial and
extremely destructive andextremely expensive.
Yes.
Right.
I don't know too many peoplewho've gone through prolonged
litigation that come out of it andsay, oh, that was a complete, you
know, absolutely the best thing Iever did.
When can I do that again?Yeah.
And nobody's going to sign up fora second act.
the best thing I ever did.
When can I do that again?

(34:17):
Yeah.
So, you know, why do I want to be
that guy?Yeah.
Right.
I would much rather be the guy
that's like, oh, yeah, my lawyerhelped me build that building
there.
Or my lawyer helped me do that
winery over there or you'rebuilding stuff.
And, you know, I drive around townnow.
It's like, OK, you kind of have alegacy and you see that legacy in
all the buildings that you'vetouched.
And, you know, I drive around townnow.

(34:38):
It's like, okay, you kind of havea legacy and you see that legacy
in all the buildings that you'vetouched.
And, you know, sometimes it'slittle things like, oh, I just,
you know, realigned the highwayover there.
Okay, cool.
But that's stuff that kind of

(34:58):
means something as opposed toliterally tearing stuff apart.
And so just from a kind of apersonal perspective, that's the
stuff that it gets me up in themorning.
It makes it fun to go to work andto do work.
A lot of times my practice willtouch on litigation in the sense
of like one of my clients iscoming back to me and there's
having a dispute.
So I'll kind of get involved in
kind of the early stages of, youknow, the mean, nasty letters
getting back and forth.
And then I get quickly reminded,

(35:18):
I'm like, don't work this.
I touched it.
It was too hot i'm like no youknow what i know people who really
like this and so let's let themyou know do the court application
we're blessed in this town thatthis is a desirable place to live

(35:39):
and we've gotten really goodspecialized counsel kind of in all
areas so yeah you know whensomebody wants to fight the
government i know who to tap whenthey want to fight each other i
know who to tap when they want tofight each other.
I know who to tap.
If somebody wants to get divorced,
I can tap that guy.

(35:59):
So I'll just pass the baton and
let them do that stuff.
And I'll just stick to, you know,
building more wineries and growingmore grapes.
Yeah.
We need help with that right now,
I think.
I get I Oh, we really do.
We really do.
So I had a meeting with a bank
manager yesterday, and they hadjust done their risk assessment on
this.
This is a bank manager in the

(36:21):
Southern Okanagan.
And they had just done a risk
assessment on this bank manager inthe southern okanagan and they had
just done a risk assessment ontheir portfolio and it was bleak
it was really really bleak thehard thing in that industry is
that you know they're estimatingsomewhere between 80 to 90 crop
loss or yeah so when you look atthat it's not going to affect

(36:43):
thankfully for all of us who lovewine it's not going to affect next
year's bottles yeah but it'llaffect the year after that's
whites and it'll affect the yearafter that's you know light reds
and the year after that's darkreds so you look at that loss of
supply and you think okay well howis that going to affect some of

(37:04):
these businesses well for some ofthose let's just call them the mom
and pop wineries and i have a fewof them in my collection where
they may only have one smallwinery of seven acres or
something.
There's a lot like that.
There's that somebody's dreamretirement folks, right?
Like, and you talk about theintersection of land and business,
but there's a lot of emotion tiedup in land in that.
That's another part of my job thatI really like.
So for that person, I'm assumingthey have diverse portfolio of
wines.
They're going to lose 30% of their

(37:24):
income over the next four years,right?
That's going to be really hard.
And unfortunately, this favors the
big producers because they'regoing to be able to pull from
multiple wineries in multiplelocations.
They're going to be diversifiedfrom that risk.
And they're going to be able toprobably acquire some of those
smaller producers at a discountnow because they're going to have
to sell so you know that's kind ofthe sad part for those of us that
like you know small local uniquewines and well i think that's a
lot of us one us one of thereasons why we even live here yeah

(37:46):
right so like like before the coalsnap hit and hurt the grapes like
there was already a lot ofwineries were already for sale i
think it was like something like25% of wineries were for sale.
Well, that's because it happenedthe year before, but just, you
know, it was a much lighter hit.
It was about a 25% hit the year
after.
And I remember walking the vines
with one of my favorite clientsand we were down in Okanagan Falls
and he was just counting his luckystars because he had only lost

(38:07):
about 10% of those vines, muchbetter than the 25% average.
And so he was like, okay, starsbecause he had only lost about 10
of those vines much better thanthe 25 and so he was like okay
we'll replant see what happens butnow to lose 80 or 90 and the hard
part is that those vines are eightyeah five years to recover folks
yeah so eight see so because whatdo you think of the winter we just
had it was like kind of warm.
It was warmer than average.
Yeah, it was.
We had one cold snap and it just a

(38:28):
little too cold.
Kind of crazy to think about that.
Yeah.
I think in April, there's an
additional tax coming out onalcohol as well.
So they're just getting hammeredfrom both That's thanks to
Alberta.
You're talking about the Alberta
thing?Yeah.
Yeah.
That's not done yet though.
We still have a few punches left.
the difference between a notary
and a lawyer?I mean, this is probably an easy

(38:50):
one for you.
When I speak with clients about
it, I'm kind of like a lawyer cangive you legal advice.
Notary is kind of signing off onthe documents.
So why should somebody come to alawyer when we're talking real
estate transactions?Well, in my view, it depends on
what you're doing.
It depends on kind of where you're
at on kind of the type of advicethat you're seeking.
There's lots of notaries that cando a residential conveyance.
That's kind of within, you know,their kind of statutorily mandated
things of what they can do.
They can find land title
documents.
That's great.
And I know a lot of notaries thatI like to work with in that

(39:13):
regard.
They're very affable people.
I think from a lawyer'sperspective, and this kind of goes
across the profession, is that youshould get a lawyer that really
focuses on the area that you needhelp on.
And I think you heard me earlierin saying that, like, I'm not
going to do family law.
I'm not going to do any
litigation.
Right.
You really want a lawyer thatfocuses on that area.
And that's not really necessarilya notary lawyer dynamic.

(39:33):
You just want somebody who'sreally focused on your issue and
your problem and has hopefullyseen it before so they can help
you out.
It's kind of like choosing a
doctor, right?You know, or a dentist, right?
You wouldn't say, okay, I'd likemy dentist to do a full mouth
reconstruction when they've neverdone one before.
Probably not, right?Like you want a guy that's like,
okay, that's what I do.

(39:54):
I do full mouth reconstruction.
I'm the guy for you, you know, orif your surgeon's never done an
appendectomy, maybe I'm findingsomeone else.
I know it's simple surgery and youwent to medical school, but I want
a guy who's been there before.
And I think that's true with every
professional, whether we'retalking to accountants or
engineers or anything else, youwant a guy who has experience or
gal who has experience in doingwhat you want.

(40:15):
And so that's kind of the crux ofit.
So in terms of kind of theresidential purchaser and the
lawyer-notary kind of game, frommy perspective, it's who can you
talk to and get really good adviceright at the beginning of the
transaction.
Even with my residential clients,
my rule of thumb for all therealtors that I work with is send
the clients to talk to me as soonas they sign that contract.
I don't care if subject removal isthree weeks out and I don't care

(40:36):
if they don't actually removesubjects on it.
I want to talk to them when theysign that contract so that they
fully understand what's in thatcontract and what's on that title.
And this is when I say we, I meanlike all the lawyers at my firm,
MMS, who, you know, real estate isa big focus area of ours.
We go through that contract andthat title with that client and
make sure that they are completelycomfortable with what they signed,
the legal ramifications of whatthey've signed, because even if
you sign a contract for subjectconditions, there's still legal

(40:58):
ramifications to it.
You have a best efforts obligation
to kind of take that through.
That's a recent Supreme Court case
called the scene that haveoverlaid that the good faith
doctrine of contractualperformance.
And so we take them through thatso that they understand what
they've signed.
And then at the end of the day,
they decide not to proceed withthe transaction.
For our firm case, there's nolegal fees that are owed.
We'll just see on the next one.

(41:18):
I think that's so important to
highlight because, like I say, alot of contracts, you write a lot
of contracts.
And it's a subject question on
almost every client.
It's subject to the lawyer.
Cause I don't want to pay them.
Well, yeah.
And it's always subject tofinancing, subject to home
inspection, subject to legaladvice and legal advice is
normally a couple of days afterthe contract sign.
And I'm like, Oh, so did you like,who's your lawyer?

(41:39):
Like, who should I be sendinginstructions to from the lender?
Oh, I haven't picked one yet.
I'm like, well, why'd you remove
subjects on legal advice?Well, I don't know.
I mean, like, it's like, what areyou doing?
This is step one.
So, well, a great example of that.
And it's a reported case.
You can take a look at the
pictures on RTCO is 282 Ravendrive.
It's the Elyson Sorenson case.
And that's a great example because

(41:59):
in that case like the pool waslike clearly in the middle of the
property line and they went tocourt and the guy lost his pool
yeah you can actually see it onthe rdc open pinterest it's right
there it was a case that we talkedabout in legal update and so
that's a great example of wherewhat happened the property line
was literally in the middle of thepool in the middle of what you can
tell from the aerial photoswhoever put the You pool.

(42:22):
could tell from the aerial photos.
Whoever put the pool in just said,
fuck it, the permits and justwent.
Well, whoever originally put thehedge in, put the hedge in
straight to the back of theproperty line, not knowing the
property line actually went.
And so And so was the adjacent
property line a different owner?So the So the adjacent property
line's pool went right here.
And so City of Kelowna permitted
that pool.
Oh, really?
There was multiple, there wasmultiple owners.
There was multiple owners thatwere intervening before the owners

(42:45):
that finally litigated.
And it wasn't until one of the
owners wanted to actually put up anew fence and did a survey for the
new fence that they found out,hey, look, it's one right there.
So that's an example of a surveyissue, which, you know, like the
lawyer looks at the plan, butthat's also partially, you know,
the realtor saying, okay, doesthis plan look like the property?
Because the realtor is the onethat's walking through it.

(43:07):
And that's partially the homeownertoo, in the sense of like, you
know, does this property thatyou're seeing the overhead, does
that match?Because the homeowner signs off on
the plan when they come in and seeus, Does that shape of the lot
match your understanding of whatyou're buying?
I know another great example, andI fixed this one for the lawyers
out in Rheum.
This is a townhome development
where we had four block townhomes,five, six, seven, eight in a row.

(43:28):
Okay.
But when they issued the straddle
lot numbers, it was five, six,seven, eight, the opposite way.
Yeah.
Perfect.
So for 20 years, folks, 20 years,Straddle Lot 5 owned Straddle Lot
8 and Straddle Lot 8 ownedStraddle Lot 5.
And it continued that way foralmost 20 years and different
owners.
And then it wasn't until,
thankfully, an astute lawyer outthere kind of looked at it and had
his client like say, well, this isnorth.
Like, which way does your balconyface?

(43:49):
And she's like, no, I'm supposedto buy that one.
And it's like, well, that's notthe one we're supposed to.
And so there's this big issue.
And that lawyer called me and
said, Peter, how do we fix thisproblem?
And so we got to fixing it andfixed it.
But so did everybody have to payPTT on that?
Yeah.
What?
Oh, my God.
Yeah.
Our province at its finest.

(44:10):
That is not a PTT exemption.
There is a PTT exemption forconveyance error, but PTT has
clearly said, no, that doesn'tcount as conveyance error.
that's Straddle Lot 8 So I guessthe other is everybody could just
move, which obviously never goingto happen.
Save yourself 20 grand in tax andmove your couch.
They're the same square footage,right?
These are townhome units, butreally easy kind of, you know,
just swap.
So, you know, things like that,
like why is the lawyer importantin context of a transaction?
Those are two really greatexamples of, all right, those are

(44:33):
great things.
From the realtor's perspective, we
read your contract.
So, you know, if you're buying a
place at Big White and you forgotto mention GST, I'm going to tell
you.
And it is.
Lay it on me, man.
But it's way easier to fix that
yeah before we move subjectconditions let's talk about let's
talk about it then until after wemove subject conditions and oh by
the way mr realtor you're nowpaying five percent yeah we don't
want that to happen so it'shelpful from the realtor's

(44:56):
perspective it's helpful from theclient's perspective send it right
away if you don't proceed there'sno legal fees you have to pay.
And any kind of LTSA we just holdyour file.
fees, And when you buy that nextyour LTSA fees get thing, billed
on the next file.
But there's no legal fees for the
title review.
And that's my policy.
That's the policy of my partners.
I know that's very, very similar

(45:17):
to other real estate specificlawyers in town.
We're blessed here in the Valleyto have a number of good real
estate firms.
I have a number of great
colleagues and really appreciatethem.
So that's the right way to go.
The worst thing you can do is
remove subject conditions withoutactually doing your due diligence.
Yeah.
Or I about just writing wildly
unconditional offers all the time,like a few years that's what that
home rescission period is about,right?
They were worried about that andthey were worried about people
getting burned by that.
So I was on the committee for that

(45:38):
thing.
And they asked me there, Peter,
how long should this be?And I said, it should be seven
days, just like the new home one.
Why don't we match them up so that
there's some sort of rationalehere, folks, between new housing
and used housing?Because how come if you're buying
new housing, you get seven days,but if you're buying used housing,

(45:58):
you get three days?Yeah, it be the other way around,
if would make so much easierbecause of the counting, the
weekends and the stats is soconfusing.
It makes no sense at all.
I was clearly overruled because
they went to three days.
So, you know, don't count on me to
change government unless you wantme to be your benevolent know,
that's the title of this if youwatch this.
So it really should be the same.

(46:18):
But in those three days, what do
you do?Like, can you line up a home
inspector?Maybe.
If the seller lets you in.
You know, will your financing be
done?I don't know.
How fast are you, Taylor?You know, do you have anything
better to do tonight?know, do you have anything better
to do tonight?Yeah, exactly.
Financing in three days.
Like most of the time it takes
days, right?Yeah.
So not to get into the weeks herea bit, but there was another one

(46:41):
with a title.
I've seen this happen a few times.
I want to ask you about it.
With a building scheme or
something like that that says theroof has to be cedar shingles.
Oh, yeah.
Things like 20, 30 years, 40 years
old.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, is that serious?Because I've sold a few of these
where you look at the neighborhoodand there is like one house with

(47:03):
cedar shingles and all the restI've got.
So building schemes in BritishColumbia can say a lot of
different things there's one inthe british properties in
vancouver that says that no asianpeople can live there i'm dead
serious whoa so just because abuilding scheme says something and
the british properties one is agood example of this doesn't mean
it's enforceable okay in theinterior of british columbia the
ones that say that they have cedarshakes on it, and this is my gut
feeling, not a legal opinion,folks, but my gut feeling is good

(47:26):
luck enforcing that one.
Because we clearly have fire risk
here.
Yeah.
I it's actually in Crawford, whichwas already burned down.
Yeah.
So we clearly have fire risk here.
To say that that would beenforceable would be very, very
difficult.
Now, the other thing with
statutory building schemes is whoenforces it?
The city has said to me at leastmany times, we don't enforce
statutory building schemes.
And the city's not a party to the

(47:47):
statutory building scheme.
The other parties to the statutory
building scheme are your otherneighbors.
So whatever you do that's contraryto the statutory building scheme
has to be so bad to piss yourneighbors off that they're willing
to throw down 40 or 50 000 to takeyou to supreme court okay so what
is that that's probably notparking your boat in your driveway
probably The though a lot ofbuilding schemes say hey if you
park your boat in the drivewaythat's contrary to building scheme

(48:09):
so they could you know and then ihave to tell clients this, they
could, if they wanted to, reallysay something about it.
But, you know, I was, I think itwas the second home I owned here.
I owned up in Smith Creek.
You know, there were boats
everywhere.
And it had, you know, you can't
park your boat in your driveway.

(48:31):
But summertime came, everybody had
a boat in their driveway.
But what does get enforced?
Well, what does get enforced iswhere you block somebody's view.
You have seriously changedsomebody's value.
All right.
Then they're taking you to Supreme
Court.
Yeah.
And they will affect the valuemore than 40 or 50 grand.
And they will enforce it.
will Yeah.
Easy one to highlight is just downthe street when Aqua Development
was building on the neighboringproperty.
I forget him, but you know, yeah,he was fighting that.
Obviously he didn't win not tohold your feet to the fire, but

(48:52):
what's your opinion on You knowwhat?
That is one case I have not read.
from that So, I can't yeah, really
comment perspective, because Ihaven't dived into that one too
much.
From a non-legal point of that
struck view, me as a waterfrontlandowner having a little bit of
an imby type of feeling.
But I did not dive into the legal
rationale there.
But clearly, they're still it went

(49:12):
yeah okay we got to wrap this upand get you going if you could buy
one property in the okanagan inthe next 12 months what would it
be one property just one yeah youcan buy more if you want asked us
if yeah i like where your head'sat there's a lot of really great
stuff to buy.
In terms of kind of Kelowna area,
I would be looking for, of course,like the older housing that is
that RU7.
We can put a fourplex on it,

(49:33):
mid-rise type of stuff.
I think that stuff has great
potential here.
So that's still all the stuff in
Kelowna North, stuff aroundRaymer, that stuff's going to sell
all day long.
So I really like that.
In terms of kind of other stuff,well, you know, Mark Twain always
says buy land, they're not makingmore of it, right?
So buying land itself.
Especially here in Kelowna.

(49:53):
Well, developable land period thatis close to urban centers is going
to have, especially with whereEspecially here in Cologne.
My developer clients, they'restill proceeding to purchase and
look for good raw land.
You know, development has not
stopped, thank God, despite somehigh interest rates.
I think it's just what we'relooking at.
What we have seen change is thespeed of building.
So the speed of incurring thoseadditional costs has slowed down
quite a bit because, of course,with interest rates, it's like now
we have to be really mindful ofcarrying costs.
So that's of course, changing withinterest things a little rates,

(50:14):
it's bit.
like now we have to be really
mindful of carrying costs.
So that's changing things a little
bit.
But yeah, so I would buy land and
I would definitely be looking forproperties with house
densification Nice.
What's the best thing you've ever
spent any Great vacations.
And from my perspective, you only
have one trip around the sun,right?
And investing in yourself hasalways been a good thing so you
know one of the best things i everdid was got my kind of my offshore

(50:36):
captain's license so the abilityto sail and you know spend some
quality time in the ocean where doyou go wonderful there's a great
school in bellingham actually sendone sailing so just almost next to
us yeah yeah no doubt How do yougive back?
Central Canoghan I sat onFoundation.
their board of directors foryears.
They are absolutely fantastic.
They can work with individual
donors to set up specific funds,but they have a lot of different

(51:00):
missions in town in terms of whatthey do and what they can
accomplish.
But the whole point of the
foundation is we hold onto theprinciple of the funds and we
deploy the interest each and everyyear because we want our influence
to grow.
And so it has been growing year
after year after year, and it doeslots of different things in this
town for a lot of different peopleand really makes a real difference

(51:21):
in the Okanagan.
So I was proud to sit on their
board of directors for And whenI'm making a local donation,
years.
they are my first go-to.
Last question is how can Taylorand I or our podcast or our
listener help you?Well, helping me, I think from my
perspective, you know, if you'relooking for help, give me a call
for sure.
And I'll see if I'm the right
person.
If I'm not, I probably know the

(51:42):
right person and I can direct youin that way.
if I'm lucky enough to be at thestage of my career where I get to
kind of pick and choose what I doand who I do that with.
And I'm very grateful for that.
And I'm very grateful to have some
amazing clients, some amazingpartners, an amazing partner in
life.
And that's a good place to be.
Awesome.
Well, it's been awesome talking to
you.
It's so fun.
Yeah, it was fun.

(52:02):
Yeah.
Thanks for coming on.
Yeah.
Thank you.
Yeah.
Hopefully you don't send us a billfor this.
You're probably the most expensiveguest we've had on.
So uh, one hour.
Yeah, Yeah, yeah, exactly.
This is some serious financial.
Yeah.
The contract didn't go through.
Yeah.
No, thank you so much.
Appreciate your time.
And yeah, look forward to havingyou back on.