My Mortgage Is in Trouble—What’s Next?

The 2007 collapse of Alberta’s real estate boom caught a lot of home-buyers by surprise. There hadn’t been a major collapse in the real estate market since 1980, then triggered by the still hated National Energy Program. Many home-buyers—both owner-occupiers and investors—had little experience in 2007/08 when prices came crashing down. As late as 2012, we were still experiencing 07/08 ‘crash backlash,’ which in 2015 has been aggravated again by falling oil prices.

Luckily it’s not as bad as the 1980s, but many folks are still rightly concerned. We get a lot of questions about mortgage default. How long does it take the bank to foreclose? What if the mortgage is now worth more than the property? Can I use a Quit Claim to get rid of the property? A very good client suggested, and I agreed, that it would be worthwhile to discuss some of these issues a little bit more. Following are a series of questions from my client and answers by me. Continue reading →