Prior to the registration of a debenture in any one of the six Manitoba land titles offices, the document must be submitted to a district registrar for “fiating”.
Once a debenture has been fiated, it can be registered either as a mortgage or as a mortgage amending agreement. That choice is up to the filing party. Absent specific instructions, the district registrar will assume a fiat as a mortgage is required.
Documents can either be fiated as part of the registration process or they can be submitted to the district registrar for fiating, and then returned to the client for registration at a later date.
Documents that are to be fiated as part of the registration process should be submitted through the eRegistration portal in the same manner as any other paper document. These should be accompanied by a letter asking the district registrar to fiat and register the relevant document. The letter should specify if the debenture is to be fiated as a mortgage or as an amending agreement. When submitting the document through eRegistration the appropriate instrument type to be selected is either “Mortgage” or “Amending Agreement”, depending on the nature of the document.
Debentures that are to be fiated and then returned for registration at a later date may either be submitted in paper form to the attention of the district registrar or a PDF scan of the document can be emailed to the district registrar. If the document is submitted in paper, the district registrar will endorse the fiat on the paper document and return it to you. On registration, please submit a PDF scan of the fiated document. If the debenture has been submitted by email, the district registrar will fiat the debenture electronically and return it to you by email. On registration, please submit this PDF document. For those sending in a paper document, remember that only one copy needs to be submitted for fiating, even if the debenture affects lands in multiple land titles districts.
There is no fee for having a debenture fiated. The fee to register the fiated debenture is the same as the fee to register a mortgage.