Money Judgement Act

[mstanton1]

Discussion is underway on implementing a "judgement registry" within PPR. The judgement registry would enable registration of a judgement.

Bill 27: https://www.bclaws.gov.bc.ca/civix/document/id/lc/billscurrent/4th42nd:gov27-1#section2 Summary of Change: https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/justice/about-bcs-justice-system/legislation-policy/active-reviews/money-judgment-enforcement-act

Target Date April 1, 2025 Likely legislative amendments to take place in April 2025

Key System Changes

1. Enable a new PPR registration type for the entry of judgement information, including the judgement amount.
   • a mix between standard security agreement and repairer's lien
   • key differences are we need to collect a judgement amount (Canadian dollars), potentially judgement date, judgement court order information
   • to be confirmed if this registry will use the secured party lookup / whether existing secured parties will use this
2. Update PPR search logic to include money judgement records.
   • confirm intent is that money judgement is another type of PPR lien that can be searched under existing search categories
   • confirm if a money judgement registration search output must be certified. Note Section 26 (2) of the linked Bill 27 above references the Registrar providing a certified copy of the results of the search
3. All other functions (renewal, amendment, discharge) will operate essentially unchanged except for supporting the new notice of judgement type registration.
   • key change is we need the ability upon amendment to update the judgement amount due
   • changing a registration should be limited to a small group of civil enforcement officer businesses. Note there are approximately 12 who are quite stable. Some changes in this list may occur over time when contract renewals come up
4. Provide the ability for AG to generate the following data, as needed
   • How long does it take for a creditor to collect x% of their judgement, expressed in years
   • How much of a judgement is collected after a specified amount of years
   • How long (how many years) are judgements collected before being abandoned (no decrease in the amount of judgement for more than X number of years)
   • What % of judgement is collected before abandonment Options: Use Data Lake reporting or produce an API so they can pull data to compile their own reports

Volumes

Estimated 8,000 to 16,000 judgements will be filed annually.

Operational

AG noted they fund and support projects through completion but do not have the organizational set up for ongoing client support. The request is BC Registries existing support services take on ongoing support needs. This would include, at a minimum

• Support for client account set up
• Search/registration/amendment support
• Changes to the civil enforcement group

[mstanton1]

With t-shirt sizing this is sized at 7 sprints (14 weeks) for development. API work could be completed at the same time as UI work which would reduce the overall time for completion to 5 sprints (10 weeks). This does not factor in design. Although design changes are not expected to be significant there are a number of small details to confirm and tackle in the design.

[mstanton1]

Estimate as per discussion with Linda and Sal: Lowest possible: 10 weeks (412,500 for contracted team, 54,225 for PO and BA) Higher estimate (includes design): 16 weeks (660,000 for contracted team, 86,760 PO and BA)

Cost for Support: -recommendation this is covered by retaining service fees for each transaction -any later system updates would require additional funding to be discussed at that time Assumption: operational support would include account set up and technical support for transactions but does not cover any enforcement.

Note: Service Design for AG noted concern with accessibility for registering a judgement and the account set up flow. I have advised account set up changes are not in scope for BC Registries in the near future. For example, these clients are often new to the system. If they are using an affidavit they have additional costs and wait time for approval. Payment would include another delay as many will not have an existing BC Online account so would need to set up PAD and then wait the confirmation period.

[mstanton1]

Potentially new requirement flagged to prevent two baliff companies from working on the same file. Discussions are underway and may impact the estimates above.

Additionally, further work has been requested on operational costs. Sal has mentioned we should consider these separately and has requested we start by estimating the team in "FTEs". I've reached out to various parties to try to determine stats on PPR registration/search (total 2023) and PPR telephone calls (total 2023) as well as account set up volumes (total 2023) and the number of account set up calls (total 2023). This should allow us to understand the percentage of clients that require help so we can better understand impacts based upon the estimated volumes above.