Edward L. Wilson*

Senior Counsel

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* Law Corporation

Ed practices in the areas of real estate and municipal law, with a focus on real estate development. He advises clients on a wide range of projects, including industrial site development, heritage designation and density bonusing arrangements, shopping centre rezonings and redevelopments, office and industrial parks, condominium projects, strata title hotels, and mine site development. His experience also includes the subdivision and sale of pulp and saw mills, municipal downtown redevelopment, and commercial lease negotiations for both landlords and tenants.

He has been involved in large land assemblies, subdivisions, bare land strata plans, air space parcels, real estate acquisitions, financings, sales, and the structuring of ownership and transaction models. Ed works closely with sellers, buyers, and developers on commercial, residential, industrial, resort, and financing matters, and also advises on environmental issues related to real property.

Ed is recognized as a leading authority in British Columbia on strata corporation windups, having completed dozens of windups including the province’s first court-approved windup. He has served on multiple committees proposing changes to strata property law, including the BC Law Institute’s committee that recommended changes to the Strata Property Act that allowed for more the flexible rules facilitating windups.

His experience also includes advising on energy-related projects such as cogeneration plants, run-of-river generation facilities, electrical transmission lines, natural gas pipelines, and LNG plants. Ed has further advised on the development of standard form documents in the real estate, strata management, and mortgage broker sectors, and supports professionals in those industries on regulatory matters.

Expertise

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Experience

Ed has particular expertise with respect to the unique land issues which arise in relation to the acquisition of and on-going access to linear projects. Ed’s recent representative experience includes:

Providing a major electrical producer with legal assistance in connection with the strategic acquisition of Statutory Right of Way interests over private property for the purposes of the Dawson Creek/ Chetwynd Area Transmission (DCAT) project.
Acting for one of Canada’s major pipeline companies with respect major natural gas transmission projects.
Advising on obtaining rights to use provincial Crown land for an LNG terminal in the Douglas Channel Energy Partnership in the development and permitting of their LNG project in Douglas Channel, including issues relating to the City of Kitimat’s land use controls.
Providing another project proponent with legal assistance in connection with the strategic acquisition of Statutory Right of Way interests over crown land and private property for the purposes of a proposed linear project having its terminus in Kitimat.
Providing a mining corporation with legal assistance in connection with the procurement and/or acquisition of various land tenures over crown land and private property for the purposes of various linear infrastructure components serving the project (including roads and electrical transmission lines).
Negotiated long term ground leases and development agreements with Port Metro Vancouver on behalf of warehousing and logistics firms, cement and aggregate terminal operators, and grain terminal operators.
Assisting numerous clients with the BC expropriation process.
Assisted clients on other projects requiring various form of crown tenures (licenses, work permits, leases, rights of way) or interests in private lands (such as option to purchase, purchase agreements, lease etc.).

Strata Windups

He is one of the leading experts on strata corporation windups having completed a number of strata corporation windups as well as the first court approved windup in BC. Ed has been an active member of a number of committees over the years proposing changes to strata property law, including the BC Law Institute’s Committee that recommended changes to the Strata Property Act that allowed for more the flexible rules facilitating windups. Since then, Ed has been working in conjunction with various other lawyers at Lawson Lundell and has closed on more than 25 strata windups involving approximately 1100 strata lots with a total sale price exceeding $798,000,000. Ed is currently working on a number of additional strata windups at various stages involving over 1000 strata lots. The Strata Wind Up Group is the leading strata windup group in BC, having advised strata corporations, liquidators, purchasers, owner’s groups, and real estate brokers on over 55 strata windups.

Rankings & Recognition

Involvement

Professional Activities

British Columbia Law Institute, Chair
Urban Development Institute, Member
Canadian Council for Public & Private Partnerships, Member
Mortgage Brokers Association of B.C., Member
National Association of Industrial & Office Properties, Member
SPA – Strata Property Agents of British Columbia, Associate Member

Community Activities

Take a Hike Youth at Risk Society, Board Member
Medallion Housing Society, Board Member
Vancouver Curling Club, Former Board Member

Canadian Bar Association

Municipal Law Subsection, Member
Vancouver Real Property Subsection (“VRPS”), Chair; Executive Committee Member; Strata Property Act Committee Member; Standard Form Undertaking Letter Committee Chair; Real Estate Act Amendment Committee Member; Personal Property Security Act Committee Member
Presentations on a variety of topics including: Standard Form Contract of Purchase and Sale, Property Law Act, Standard Form Undertaking Letter, Title Insurance, and Electronic Filing
VRPS Title Insurance Committee, Chair
CBA Representative on BC Real Estate Association’s Standard Form Committee
Land Title and Survey Authority, Electronic Filing Committee; Business Development Advisory Committee and Legal Issues Committee.

Law Society of BC

Retained by the Law Society to advise on real estate fraud prevention and anti-money laundering measures
Retained by the Law Society and Lawyer’s Insurance Fund to advise on complaints against members and insurance claims in the real estate field

Continuing Legal Education of British Columbia

Ed is CLEBC’s leading volunteer having chaired more than 12 courses and written over 30 papers on such topics as: Strata Property Act, Real Estate Development, Commercial Condominium By-laws, Property Transfer Tax, Financing Urban Growth, Easements, Resort Developments and Hotel Properties, Electronic Filing, Liability Issues for Strata Agents and more. Ed has been the co-editor of CLEBC's Real Estate Development Practice Manual since 1994.

Ed received the Georges A. Goyer, QC Memorial Award for Distinguished Service to the legal profession in 2023 which recognized Ed's exceptional contributions to the legal profession and the development, the law in British Columbia. The award is the Highest Honour bestowed by the CBABC and Ed was the first, and to date, the only solicitor to be honoured with this award.