Land for Ride... Question

Friends of my boyfriends have bought a couple hundred acres of land up north. They want to give us 4 acres of the land (with road access) for a ride up there in a few weeks. The land is beautiful, it's fairly flat, has a river running along one edge and a bit of a forest as well. They would basically use the land until we move up there but we would own it. 

I've looked into how much the taxes would be, approximately, and it's pretty cheap. My question is more on the legal aspect of it; I'm assuming we would need a lawyer to do a land transfer and would obviously have the pay them for that, but would there be anything else we would have to pay for right off the bat? Can someone even give away land like that? Would I be responsible, legally, if anything  happened on the land while they were using it? 

We would love to move up there, build a little farm and grow hops (the area is perfect for hops) and then other things for personal use (veggies, etc) and to run an animal sanctuary from. It would be a few years before we could do that though, but it would be nice to obtain the land for free. 

Did your boyfriend's friends pay cash for the land, or do they have a land mortgage loan? You don't want them to add your name on the title for the land then you'd have to legally assume the mortgage!

If they own it all free and clear, and then gift some acreage to you, still a Partition in Kind would have to be done by the courts. It's expensive, takes a lot of time, and involves appraisers who would legally divide the land. Whoever starts the petition process has to pay for the courts and the appraisers; that might be you because you'd need a new title showing you own the 4 acres. But if there is a current mortgage, you'd have to pick it up and pay for the acreage. I'm not sure someone can even gift a portion of land if they are still buying it...  I'd tread carefully.

p.s. The court-appointed appraisers won't necessarily give you those particular 4 acres, either, they could pick any 4 acres they want as long as it has road access. You really need to talk to an attorney about this if your friends are serious.

Sounds like more trouble than it's actually worth. I'm guessing the court fees and everything would be greater than the value of the land, like I said, land up there is really cheap so each acre is worth, at most, $1000. I'm also not sure if we're have mineral rights either, there's a lot of mining up there and I'm not sure what happens if you don't own the rights to the minerals and they decide they want to mine them. 

I think we'll just hold out for a year or so and then buy some ourselves. Thanks for the input! 

Nobody can buy mineral interests in Canada, they are all owned by the government. Actually, technically, they are also owned by the Queen but so is the land since it's commonwealth, but that's another subject.

If the land is bought and paid for, it might be a good deal, you could send emails to attorneys in your area asking them if it's worth pursuing. You don't have to pay for the info they give unless you tell them you are hiring them for their services. You can get a lot of good, free legal advise that way. Also the internet can tell what you need to do if you have the time to do some digging.

If an oil company wants to drill and you own surface rights, they will pay you per acre and throw in some sweet deals like new fences, paving the roads, etc. whatever you agree with them. (If you don't put in the lease that they have to clean up when they leave, they won't, so it has to all be spelled out.) I doubt they would lease the surface rights of 4 acres, though, they would probably go to the owner of the other 196 acres instead, I personally haven't heard of anyone leasing surface rights for less than 40 acres.

Another thing to consider is if there is water available and can you put in a septic tank should you get the 4 acres. You have to have water available somehow to live there. Good luck!

I didn't know that about the mineral stuff, I just saw on some land for sale ads that sometimes you own the rights to the minerals that may be on the property and sometimes you don't? I agree though, I doubt they would do anything over 4 acres, lol. 

My boyfriend has a friend who is a lawyer, I'll get him to send him an email and ask some questions. 

There is water there, there is the river that runs through the entire property and splits in a few places and also a good water table from my understanding. There's a well for the house on the other 196+ acres and a lake closer to where our acreage would be, as long as the surveyors would let us have the same spot. Regardless, there's water all over the place there. 

Does it matter if the land surrounding the property they bought is crown land? I don't know if it is or not, but thought I'd ask in case. 

All land in Canada is crown land (owned by the Queen of England). Approximately 11% is "privately owned" by the native people here, but if you dig for it you find that the Queen actually owns that, too. The government (and therefore the Queen) has owned the mineral interests for over 100 years now, you cannot privately own or buy mineral (or subsurface) rights in Canada.*

*There is an exception to this; for several years now, you can now buy B.C. mineral rights over the internet, something Campbell's government did but I don't know much about it.