Following up on the article in this issue of LIANSwers “Judgments: a Blessing, or a Curse?“, we refer to the recent decision of the NS Supreme Court in RBC v Campbell, 2026 NSSC 37 as it discusses the interrelationship between the Land Registration Act (“LRA”) and the judgment roll.

The facts in this case are straightforward. As part of a 2016 Corollary Relief Order, the husband was to forthwith convey his half interest in the matrimonial property to his former wife by Quit Claim Deed. He did not do so. In 2019 RBC obtained a judgment against the Husband which it recorded in the judgment roll. In 2023 the husband finally executed the Quit Claim Deed and because judgments recorded on the judgment roll are only added to the parcel register on migration or a revision, the judgment should have been recorded in the parcel register. It was not and, when RBC discovered this error, it filed a motion to have the judgment added to the parcel register. RBC was successful.

Without knowing whether this will be appealed, the decision itself is a good read for all, particularly property and family lawyers for whom this issue arises with some frequency because it reviews the scheme of the LRA, how the LRA amends the common law in various aspects of property law and references the Matrimonial Property Act (“MPA”).

To the decision, after reviewing the law in Nova Scotia dealing with priority of judgments under the LRA in the context of division of assets, specifically the decisions of the Court of Appeal in Gill v. Hurst, 2011 NSCA 100 and MacIsaac v. Royal Bank of Canada, 2015 NSCA 12, the Court, at paragraph 62 of its decision, summarized the law on this issue;

[62]         Hurst and MacIsaac establish the following:

  • The system created by the LRA is intended to create certainty of ownership. It assures persons acquiring an interest in property that only registered interests will affect title.
  • The LRA, on its face, requires any transfer of interest in land to be a matter of record as evidenced only by the parcel register.
  • The legislators’ intention was to make the parcel register the only way to transfer any estate or interest in land.
  • Absent a breach of the MPA or fraud, parties need take no notice of claimed interests – proprietary or not – that have not been recorded under the LRA.
  • At common law, a judgment did not attach to land if, at the time the judgment was registered, the judgment debtor had already disposed of his or her beneficial interest in the land. In other words, a judgment could only attach to lands in which the judgment debtor had a beneficial interest.
  • The LRA has altered the common law in relation to the position of judgment creditors and the effect of recording a judgment in a judgment roll.
  • Under the land titles system, an unrecorded common law trust does not pass any interest in land.
  • When a judgment creditor records its judgment under the LRA, it obtains a charge on the judgment debtor’s property as a matter of law.
  • Section 8 of the MPA contemplates a positive act by an owner that grants an interest to a third party. It applies only to direct transactions relating to the matrimonial home, such as the sale or mortgaging by a spouse of his or her interest.
  • In the two Ontario trial level decisions where a judgment has been treated as an encumbrance which offends statutory provisions like s. 8, the judgment creditor and the debtor spouse effectively colluded to encumber the matrimonial home.
  • The Court of Appeal did not deal with whether the two Ontario decisions were correctly decided, but they appear to be irreconcilable with its own finding that s. 8 “does not capture the acts of a third party who records a judgment under the LRA”, which follows the Supreme Court of Canada’s decision in Maroukis v. Maroukis, [1984] 2 S.C.R. 137.
  • Section 10(1)(d) of the MPA is not a license to rearrange the property interests of third parties, absent a breach of the Act, inequitable conduct or other wrongdoing.
  • Impairing the priority of a judgment to affect a desired result cannot be a proper exercise of discretion because it confuses rights with remedies – and subordinates the former to the latter.