We’ve all read the stories coming out of the US about the crash of the housing market and the devastating amount of foreclosures, many of which were done improperly. I read an article recently in the New York Times about an unusual way some homeowners are going about...

Chris Jaglowitz at the Ontario Condo Law Blog posted an article last month detailing some changes to Tarion’s rules on adjustments for taxes and development charges. As he notes, the existing rules allow a municipality to adjust for taxes based on estimates without...

When purchasing a property, it is important to keep in mind that there are more costs than simply the purchase price. As I have blogged about here and here, there are a number of disbursements that you should always factor in when budgeting for your home purchase. One...

If you are purchasing a home that is currently rented out (or has an apartment that is currently rented out), there are extra precautions that you should take to ensure that the closing will go smoothly, whether you intend to have the tenancies severed on closing or...

What happens when one joint tenant (or tenant in common) wants out of a property and the other says no? There is a piece of legislation in Ontario called the Partition Act that governs the concept of partition and sale, when a court can order that property be...

I read an interesting article recently in the New York Times on the foreclosure epidemic in the United States and the role that title insurance is playing there. Because of extreme sloppiness, many American banks have halted all foreclosures while they determine...

Condos were created in Ontario by the Condominium Act in 1967. In a nutshell, a condo is a system of property ownership that involves the division of property into units that are individually owned, common elements that are owned in common by the owners of all units...

There is a case in British Columbia from 2007 that addressed the old concept of “caveat emptor” or “Buyer Beware”. In British Columbia, as in Ontario, it is the buyer’s obligation to determine whether there is anything wrong with a house before purchase; it is not the...

On August 27, I blogged about disbursements and what they are. Today I wanted to write more about one disbursement in particular: title searching. Title searching is done to determine whether there are any agreements, easements, restrictions, etc. on title that could...

Every now and then I have a client ask me if they have to close; this is usually days away from the closing date. There are various reasons why people change their minds late in the game, but the end result is the same: it is very difficult to refuse to close with no...