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Reference
Calgary luxury real estate
glossary.
The vocabulary that decides Calgary luxury property questions, defined plainly and linked to the pages that go deeper. Regulated, legal and tax concepts are described as general information only — the governing document, the regulator or your own professional advisor always prevails over a definition.
Terms
- Acreage parcel Acreage and regional
A larger rural or edge-of-city parcel, typically outside a city boundary, governed by county land use rules and often privately serviced.
- Agency and fiduciary duty Representation
The set of duties a representing brokerage owes a client, including loyalty, confidentiality, full disclosure of relevant facts and reasonable care.
Note: Duties differ between a client relationship and a customer or unrepresented-party relationship.
- Bare-land condominium Acreage and regional
A condominium plan where units are parcels of land rather than parts of a building, common in planned estate and acreage communities.
- Benchmark price Market data
A modelled price for a typical property of a given type in a defined area, published by a real estate board to track trend over time.
Note: It models a typical property and is unreliable for a bespoke estate. It is not a valuation of your home.
- Building permit Planning and permits
Municipal approval covering construction to the applicable building code, usually with inspections and a final status.
Note: A permit record evidences a file, not quality or completion. Open datasets update frequently and older records can be incomplete.
- Caveat Title
A registration on title giving notice of a claim or interest, which may affect financing or closing until resolved.
- Certificate of title Title
The Alberta Land Titles record of registered ownership for a parcel, including its legal description and registered interests.
Note: A title search is not a survey, an inspection or a legal opinion.
- Condominium corporation Condominium
The legal entity of unit owners that governs and maintains common property under a condominium plan, bylaws and Alberta legislation.
- County jurisdiction Acreage and regional
Land outside a city boundary where a county — such as Rocky View County or Foothills County — is the planning and permitting authority.
Note: Springbank Hill is a City of Calgary community; Springbank is a separate Rocky View County area.
- Coverage status Research method
The label describing how a profile was assembled: municipally matched, community-identified, or a public-source profile where no defensible sample existed.
- CREB® district Market data
A statistical grouping of many Calgary communities used in board reporting, such as City Centre or West.
Note: A district figure never describes a single community, and no community figure describes a single street.
- Custom home Custom homes and renovation
A residence designed and built for a specific site and client rather than from a repeated plan, usually with documented drawings and specifications.
- Days on market Market data
The elapsed listed time before a sale, as recorded by the listing system. Relisting practices can reset or fragment it.
- Design authorship Custom homes and renovation
The documented identity of the architect or designer responsible for a home, evidenced by drawings, records or professional registration.
Note: Attribution that cannot be documented should be recorded as unverified rather than repeated.
- Development permit Planning and permits
Municipal approval for a use or development on a parcel, addressing siting, form and land use rather than construction detail.
- Direct control district Planning and permits
A site-specific land use designation with bespoke rules approved by council, common on unusual or sensitive parcels.
- Documented versus inferred Research method
The distinction between what a named source states and what someone concluded from it. Inferences are labelled or withheld rather than presented as facts.
- Dual and transaction brokerage Representation
Arrangements where one brokerage, or one licensee, is involved with both buyer and seller in a transaction, which changes what can be advised and disclosed.
Note: The permitted arrangements and consents are regulated. Ask specifically how conflicts will be managed.
- Easement and utility right of way Title
A registered right for another party to use part of a parcel, commonly for access or utility infrastructure, which can constrain building and landscaping.
- Estoppel or information certificate Condominium
A certificate from the corporation stating the financial and compliance position of a unit as at a date, commonly required for closing.
- Evidence hierarchy Research method
The order of reliability applied to sources: registry and regulator records first, then official municipal publications, then board statistics with a published method, then transaction evidence, then listing context, then labelled practitioner observation.
- Exclusive-use common property Condominium
Common property assigned to one unit for its exclusive use — often a terrace, parking stall or storage area — without being separately titled.
Note: Confirm whether parking, storage and terraces are titled, assigned or exclusive-use before relying on them.
- Land use district Planning and permits
The zoning category assigned to a parcel by a land use bylaw, setting permitted and discretionary uses along with rules for height, coverage and setback.
Note: A district label is not an approval. Relaxations and site-specific conditions are decided file by file.
- Legal description Title
The formal identification of a parcel — plan, block and lot, or a quarter-section description for rural land — which identifies the property where a municipal address cannot.
- Market value assessment Assessment and tax
A mass-appraisal estimate of value prepared by a municipality for taxation as at a stated valuation date and condition date.
Note: General information only, and not a current listing valuation. Assessment complaint deadlines and processes are set by legislation.
- Mass appraisal Assessment and tax
Valuing many properties at once using statistical models and sales comparison, designed for equity across a roll rather than precision on one bespoke asset.
- Months of supply Market data
Inventory divided by the sales in a period, expressed as the number of months it would take to absorb current listings at that pace.
Note: A balance indicator, not a forecast, and rarely representative of the upper price ranges on its own.
- Off-market or pre-market property Privacy and off-market
A property being considered or prepared for sale that is not currently publicly listed, approached through professional relationships and with the owner's consent.
Note: No brokerage has a hidden inventory of unavailable homes; nothing here implies secret listings.
- Personal information (PIPA) Privacy and off-market
Information about an identifiable individual, whose collection, use and disclosure in Alberta private-sector transactions is governed by the Personal Information Protection Act.
Note: General information only, not legal advice on a specific disclosure question.
- Private servicing Acreage and regional
Water and wastewater provided by a private well, cistern, co-op or septic system rather than municipal utilities, with ongoing owner responsibility.
Note: Well yield, water quality and septic condition are professional testing questions.
- Property tax and local improvement levy Assessment and tax
The annual municipal and provincial education charge based on assessed value, plus any charge levied for a specific local improvement.
Note: General information only; this is not tax advice.
- Real Property Report (RPR) Planning and permits
A legal survey document showing the location of improvements relative to the boundaries of a parcel, usually paired with a municipal stamp of compliance.
Note: An RPR is dated. Structures added since its date will not appear on it.
- REALTOR® Representation
A real estate professional who is licensed to trade in real estate and is a member of the Canadian Real Estate Association, bound by its code of ethics. In Alberta, licensing is administered by the Real Estate Council of Alberta.
Note: A licence can be verified with the regulator; a title alone is not evidence of experience in a segment.
- Reserve fund study Condominium
A professional assessment of the expected repair and replacement needs of common property, with a funding plan.
Note: Read the study alongside the current fund balance, the plan and recent minutes.
- Restrictive covenant Title
A registered restriction on how land may be used or built upon, often controlling siting, materials, height or accessory structures.
Note: Covenants are private and enforced privately; the municipality does not administer them.
- RMS above-grade area Custom homes and renovation
Living area measured under the Residential Measurement Standard used in Alberta listings, counting above-grade space only.
Note: Developed lower levels are excluded from the figure even when they are fully finished.
- Sales-to-new-listings ratio Market data
Sales in a period compared with new listings in the same period, used as a broad indicator of market balance.
- Secondary suite Planning and permits
A self-contained dwelling within or accessory to a principal residence, subject to land use approval and safety-code requirements.
Note: Whether a suite is legal is a question for the authority, never an inference from appearance or listing text.
- Showing protocol Privacy and off-market
The documented rules for who may enter a property, when, with what identification and verification, and what may be photographed.
- Substantial renovation Custom homes and renovation
Work that materially changes structure, envelope, systems or layout, as distinct from cosmetic finishing.
Note: Substantial work typically requires permits; reconstruct the chronology from records, not from finishes.
- Verified community profile Research method
A community reading built from a deduplicated, de-identified record with a stated coverage status, sample band, time window and explicit list of unknowns.
- Written service agreement Representation
The written agreement that sets out what services a brokerage will provide, for how long, and on what basis it is paid. Alberta consumers should expect representation terms in writing before confidential information is shared.
Note: General information only — the agreement itself governs. Review it with your own advisor before signing.
Glossary last reviewed 2026-08-17.
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