Disclosure of Wind Energy Proposals

Good Morning.

I have had the following comment / question posted on the comments board.

“Since you have indicated that you talked to some real estate agents in the eventuality of putting your house on the market, I wonder whether or not the seller has to disclose the possibility of the presence of a Windmill Farm nearby in the near future. If so, it would already have an impact on the saleability of the house. What would be the percentage of the decrease? And have the real estate agents noticed an increase of people wanting to leave the area?”

All the realtors I spoke to said that they would / or it  would be best to disclose the wind energy company proposals. Saying that I have no idea as to the exact boundaries of  any local wind farm so it is difficult to know exactly how close I would be.

A number of the realtors I spoke to said “In addition to market conditions, wind farms will certainly have an affect on your property value.” Others said, “It won’t effect the value, but it will effect the buyer pool?????????” – I’d rather have a the original number of people in the buyer pool! 

I have an essay that looks into property values [Here] and am working on a much larger study of this issue.

Disclosure

• First of all I will make it clear that on this matter individuals should seek their own legal advice.
• For the buyer to have a claim against the seller the buyer would almost certainly have to satisfy the courts that:
  • The buyers would not have purchased the property if they had known about proposal / planning information that was deemed available at the time of purchase to the sellers / realtors.
  • That the seller new of this information and withheld it because they thought it might influence the sale.
  • The seller would probably counter claim that the buyer should have done more work in evaluating the area for aspects that are “deal breakers.”
  
  
• During the case it would need to be established at what point a “proposal” is required to be disclosed, and at what point it would be reasonable for the seller  or realtor to know about ideas that are generally fairly secretive.
• If this could be done then the courts would have to establish the change in value as a result of wind-turbines.

In my thoughts you would need a strong “No Buy Case,” and a good reason why further checking for proposals wasn’t carried out. The Buyer would also need to actively attempt to sell the property in order to confirm the No Buy Case. You’d also need to have good evidence that the seller knew of effecting proposals at the time of sale, for example they put the house on the market just after they signed a lease option.  

To my knowledge there have been no cases in Canada over this, although it is possible that there may be some potential cases in PEC. Time will tell.

Making Noise to Keep the Peace.

Steven

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