County of Paintearth council chose to write off a property in the amount of $138.61 to remove the tax sale notification.
Corporate services described the property as undesirable as most of it was completely under water.
A plan of the Township approved by the Surveyor General at Ottawa on June 3, 1904 was presented.
Somehow the transfer of land for this exact property did not reach the county, and it was not discovered until 2015 when a data parcel upload was completed.
When this occurred, the county spoke with their assessor and a new roll number was created for this 1.9-acre parcel, and another roll was created for the other approximately 35 acres not covered by the waters of Sullivan Lake, and unclaimed, or unregistered through Land Titles.
This unclaimed land is under the name of HMQ in Right of the Province of Alberta. Every Assessment Notice, Tax Notice, and Collection Letters sent to this company has been returned undeliverable or this “company does not exist” written on the envelope.
After digging through some archived records; there is a survey plan from 1905, that shows virtually the whole section being covered by Lake Sullivan.
During the years 1940 through to 1960, all land that had been purchased by this company was put up for tax sale by the county as no taxes were ever received since it acquired any of the land from Canadian Pacific Railway in 1940.
There is a notice on one piece of documentation that states, “the old owner had no interest in this land for more than 10 years after final acquisition.”
Terri Huxley
ECA review
