In 1996, in a home in Bowmanville, Ron England stabbed his mother and stepdaughter to death while suffering from paranoid schizophrenia. In the fall of 2011, Eric and Sade-Lea Tekoniemi purchased the property. Once they discovered the events that had occurred years...
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Real Estate
Signing for yourself
I have blogged before about arranging for a power of attorney in case anything needs to be done on your transaction while you are away. Today, I wanted to talk about running the entire deal through a power of attorney – when you are the purchaser. As a vendor, using a...
Fees, fees and more fees
Buying a condo? Then you should be extra careful about what the monthly fees will be. Generally, the status certificate will show what the current fees are. It will also state whether the condo board anticipates any special assessments in the near future. Most...
Survey says
Almost all real estate deals will come into my office with a provision for the seller to provide a survey. If you are selling, be careful: you don’t want to offer more than you have. First, to be a survey, it must have a proper mark on it from a licenced surveyor....
Alarming
Many more people these days have alarm systems. These systems, like a hot water heater, are often rentals that are to be assumed by the buyer of the home. Be careful, however: sometimes they have particular rules about assumption, and sometimes the buyer will not want...
Getting credit
If you are a first-time buyer, you are eligible for tax credits for costs associated with buying your first home. Items like legal fees, land transfer tax, and other costs associated with buying your home are open for a claim on your income taxes the following year....
First-timer benefits
The Home Buyers’ Plan is a plan that allows a home buyer to withdraw funds from most registered retirement savings plans (RRSPs) in order to buy or build a qualifying home either for you, or a relative that has a disability. Some RRSPs that do not allow any...
Monitoring abusive condo owners
Back in August, a decision was released on York Condominium Corporation No. 137 v. Hayes, which involved a condo owner who was verbally and physically abusive to other residents in the building. The condo board was attempting to have Hayes removed, and had applied to...
Small spaces
Could you live here? A developer in Surrey, BC is hoping to build Canada’s smallest condos, with the units ranging from 290 to 653 square feet. The price makes them open to people who want to buy but can’t afford the skyrocketing real estate prices in the Vancouver...
Inspecting the inspectors
Jeff Lem is a well-known real estate lawyer in Toronto. He wrote this article several weeks ago for the Law Times, and it caught my attention: the province of Ontario is looking at bringing in regulations for home inspectors. Currently, only British Columbia regulates...