North America: Real Estate and Construction

The Court of Appeal for Ontario has resolved a critical uncertainty in construction law regarding how holdback deficiencies should be calculated when owners fail to retain statutory holdbacks. The decision addresses whether contractors who have already been paid can claim additional priority over construction mortgages, and establishes important boundaries to prevent double recovery while balancing the interests of all parties in the construction pyramid.

In California, solar operators leasing land for their projects face a critical risk: foreclosure by a junior lienholder could extinguish their lease and force premature project removal, potentially triggering defaults under revenue agreements. A simple yet often overlooked solution—recording a Memorandum of Lease—can protect the project from most foreclosures by establishing the lease's priority in the chain of title.

Washington's property records combine federal surveys, handwritten field notes, metes-and-bounds descriptions, recorded plats, and digital databases into a complex system that has evolved over more than a century. While modern county databases make property information accessible within seconds, understanding how parcel numbers, legal descriptions, surveys, and recording systems work together reveals both the usefulness and occasional complexity of identifying land ownership and boundaries.