Michael Kravetz
LANGLEY NOTARY PRACTICE
From Country to Town in 45 Years without Moving!
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Michael and Alex Kravetz
ur family came to Langley in June 1970.
I remember driving with my father and brother in a rented truck from McBride to Langley. My dad had come here a few times prior and bought a new house with unfinished basement for $26,000. Dad had said years later that my grandmother worried about how he would ever pay off the $20,000 mortgage. My mother had stayed in McBride with my younger sister to help wind up my dad’s insurance business after the sale to the new owner. I seem to recall Dad wanted to move out of McBride to a busier community to give all of us children more opportunities for schooling and jobs.
For the first 3 years, Dad was a Real Estate Agent (nominee) for Paris Realty in Aldergrove and sold a bit of real estate. I remember Dad saying the family had to live off the proceeds of the insurance business from McBride to keep things going. Dad opened his BC Notary practice in September 1973 in a brand new building on Salt Lane in Langley; the practice is in the same location today. In addition to having a part-time job in a retail store, I cleaned Dad’s office weekly for extra money.
Langley in those days was a small farming community, just starting to develop with the implementation of the Agricultural Land Reserve. Langley in those days was a small farming community, just starting to develop with the implementation of the Agricultural Land Reserve. Just a block away was a “Buckerfields” store that marketed feed and farm supplies to Lower Mainland poultry and livestock farmers.
With my dad Stan when I was sworn in at the Vancouver Court House in 1989
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In addition to his Notary practice, Dad had two REALTORS® working under his real estate company to assist with office income. That lasted only a few years; he closed down the real estate portion to focus on the Notary practice. The Society of Notaries Public of British Columbia
In the early days of Dad’s practice, Langley had no Willowbrook mall; Walnut Grove did not exist nor did the huge Willoughby developments. A lot has changed since then. I started with Dad in his practice in April 1983 as an “assistant.” I learned about real estate conveyancing whereby I drafted all statements of adjustments by hand, including trust reconciliations, until final documents were typed . . . initially with a manual typewriter and later by electric typewriter. Wills were typed and the copy for the office was made on a second sheet of paper using carbon paper. I went through the Notary program and worked as an assistant until 1989 when a Notary Seal became available for Langley so I could write my statutory exams. In those days, Seals were limited geographically. In June 1989, I became official and was sworn in as a BC Notary. That was just about the time that some offices were starting to bring in computers. Later that year, we brought in four computers (Macs)—at a cost of $4000 per unit—with extremely slow word processors. They came with conveyancing and accounting software that I am running to this day. The computers were a huge gamechanger for real estate documents, contracts, agreements, and of course Wills and Powers of Attorney. The number of trust accounts in our office went from 2 to 10. Volume 27 Number 3 Fall 2018
