Saffy1990

Hi guys,

I was just wondering if you could give any advice or guidance please.

I'm 24 and work as a chartered surveyor but have been considering emigrating to Canada since graduating uni. Now that I'm fully qualified moving country should, in theory, be easier.

I've never visited but have done a lot of research regarding the different parts of Canada and have fallen in love (as much as you can do on paper) with Montreal.

If I were to emigrate, realistically it's 12-24 months away. I currently do not speak any French but would make effort to learn. My worry is that time frame, I wouldn't be at a level of fluency good enough to make me employable and my general impression from trawling through old posts is that you need to be virtually fluent.

Does anyone live in Montreal or know about the property industry there? Does anyone know how that industry functions and if it's one which requires employees to be bilingual?

I'm completely at the start of looking in to the actual mechanics of emigrating so please forgive my ignorance but are chartered surveyors referred to as that in Canada or is it known as a real estate appraiser?

Thank you for any help you can give, and once again I apologise for my lack of knowledge!

Happy new year!

Partially discharged

When you say chartered surveyor do you mean quantity surveyor or land surveyor?

If it is quantity surveyors then the only quantity surveyors I've met here are from the UK. Banks demand them a lot for financing reasons.

The only one I know in Ottawa is

https://plus.google.com/112485615645...ut?gl=ca&hl=en

Here are the Montreal examples

https://maps.google.ca/maps?sll=45.5...lassic&dg=ntvo

Good luck. French would be pretty necessary in Montreal but not Ottawa

Saffy1990

I've never refered or myself as a land surveyor as here it's known as general practice surveying but I work in commercial property doing things like bank valuations on commercial buildings, the sale of investments, advising on commercial and residential developments. Does that sound like a land surveyor?

Thanks for your help.

Partially discharged

Nope not a land surveyor. AOLS | The Association of Ontario Land Surveyors Here is the web site for land surveyors in Ontario

Sounds more like a property appraiser to me

Ontario | Appraisal Institute of Canada

Shard

My guidance would be to go and visit in person to see if you like the ******g place. Montreal does look good on paper, and many Canadians (not least Montrealers) speak highly of it. In reality it has something of a "has been" air to it, awful winters, crap architecture, constant language issues, and a good heaping of smugness. There are better cities. Bonne Annee.

Saffy1990

Yes obviously I would visit somewhere before moving thousands of miles to live there. What I wanted to try and gauge through this post is if it's even worthwhile considering it/visiting it. If the language will be that much of a barrier I can just swipe it off now and focus on other possible cities.

Thank you for the link partially discharged.

Shard

I think your best bet would be to focus on getting an employee transfer to the Canadian office of a major UK (or Canadian) surveying/property firm.

beckiwoo

On the plus side the poutine is meant to be great

scrubbedexpat091

Not knowing French will probably hinder you. Can you even immigrate to Quebec without knowing French?

The whole fighting over languages is enough to keep me away from the province.

Shard

Well, they did invent it !

Tirytory

I really liked QC but dam cold. Planning my summer trip to Tremblant now.

Sorry not helpful op... However I would have thought not being fluent in French was a significant barrier to moving to Quebec.

Sammypeeps

Hi Saffy1990

You are correct in that a chartered surveyor is not recognized as such in canada and real estate appraiser is the most similar designation over here. I am not a chartered surveyor as after graduating with a land management degree I changed careers and didn't complete the two year post qualifying deal..however on moving to Canada I ended up working in the field for a couple of years. My degree itself was not recognized to allow me entry to the appraisal institute of canada so I had to take a post graduate course though the university of British Columbia (sauder business school) in order to get signed up with the AIC. Obviously you will not have to do that!

I would suggest you contact the AIC and most likely they can give you an idea of the hoops you will have to jump through to become designated...and yes there will be hoops! The respect you will get for being RICS over here will be a very far cry from that I'm sure you have in the UK and the industry is obviously quite different!!! The big firms such as Savills, CBRE etc do operate out of the large cities and finding their locations and sending out resumes to them would be an excellent plan.

I can't say that I would recommend Montreal as a home (not that I have lived there) or Canada itself for that matter. But having to be bilingual will make life harder than necessary! For a strong position with a good wage which I am sure you are accustomed you would have to look at the largest cities which really narrows it down to Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto (ottawa...not that I would recommend) or Halifax (if you want to stay east).

There is also a way to look up RICS members located in canada on their website so it would definitely be worth contacting those guys directly as they would be most likely to try and help out a fellow Limey!

Good luck

Partially discharged

Any particular reason not to recommend Ottawa?. CBRE and Altus have a presence here in Ottawa for this type of work and there would not really be a bi-lingual requirement in Ottawa.

Sammypeeps

The only reason I said not recommending Ottawa was purely down to the strong government employment there....reducing the amount of private investment especially in commercial property. Plus I would not want to live there! Just my personal opinion.....I am sure lots of people love it!

Shirtback

The language would be a significant barrier. I came to QC a while ago, already bilingual, & it wasn't easy.

There are few & far between jobs/careers in the city (Mtl) where one might get away with no/basic French, I'm not sure that yours is one of them. Most of the unilingual Anglophones I know have been here & working here for ever (since before Bill 101), or are working in IT, for US companies.

I'm inclined to ask you "why Canada"? "Why Montreal?" ... For starters . It can be done, but it ain't easy !