Tax Recovery Process

Purpose

The tax recovery process is a process that all municipalities in Alberta are legislated to complete. The Municipal Affairs website has a document available that describes the process (PDF).

Having "Arrears"

Although the municipality's goal is to not have any properties that qualify for the tax recovery process, the onus is on the property owner(s) to ensure all property taxes are paid up in full. For those properties that do have "arrears", if they have more than one year of previous years' taxes (one year of arrears) outstanding the property will be placed in the tax recovery process. The municipality is required to register an interest for tax recovery purposes on the property's land title, and begin a process that can have the property put up for public auction in the year following placing the interest on the property.

Public Auction

The municipality's goal is to not have any properties subject to the public auction. Our team works diligently to try and find the property owners of these parcels of land to notify them of the outstanding property taxes. In many cases, the owners were not aware of the outstanding taxes (usually due to new mailing addresses that were not forwarded to the municipality). In some cases, situations occur in life that prevent the ability to keep up to date with the outstanding taxes.

The Municipal Government Act provides municipalities some options to assist property owners in keeping the properties out of the public auction process while outstanding property tax arrears are being paid up.

Discretion

Our team works very discretely with property owners in these situations. We have taken great pride in working with property owners in the past who have had difficult life situations prevent them from keeping their property taxes current. If you, or someone you know, is in a situation that is preventing them from keeping current on their property taxes, please  email the Property Tax Technician or call us at 780-826-3171, ext. 9233 to discuss any outstanding property tax issues.

Removal from the Process

The property is removed from the tax recovery process once there are no "arrears" on the account (current year's taxes can still be outstanding). If you have a property that has "arrears" on it, please email the Property Tax Technician immediately so we can educate as to this tax recovery process.