Behind on the mortgage in Montreal

What the creditor can do

A hypothecary creditor who intends to act must file a prior notice at the land register and serve it on the debtor. For an immovable, article 2758 of the Civil Code sets the period at 60 days after the notice is registered. The notice has to describe the default, the amount, the right the creditor intends to exercise, and the property. During that period the debtor can remedy the default. The rights themselves are taking in payment, sale by the creditor, sale under judicial authority, and taking possession to administer the property. They are not the same remedy. Taking in payment, if you have already paid half or more of the secured obligation when the notice is registered, needs the court’s permission.

Once the notice is registered, a sale of the house cannot be set up against the creditor unless the buyer assumes the debt with the creditor’s consent, or enough money is deposited to cover the debt, interest and the costs. In plain words: you can still sell, but the creditor gets paid, or agrees. A private deal that ignores a published notice does not wipe the notice out.

What “reprise de finance” actually means

Reprise de financement is the idea that a buyer takes on the existing hypothec instead of a new loan. Lenders do not have to allow it. It is a conversation with the creditor, not a right you hold because you found a buyer. This website’s offer is different. Bruce buys for cash. At the notary, the hypothec is paid out of the price if the price, after adjustments, covers the balance, the arrears and the costs the creditor requires. If it does not cover them, the creditor still has to release the hypothec, and that release is not Bruce’s to promise on a web page.

Nobody on this page will tell you a closing will land inside the 60 days. If a notice is already published, the useful date is one the notary can meet while the creditor will still take the payout. You choose a date in the sense the home page means — you are not handed a date by an open-house calendar — and you still have to be honest about the notice. Send the address and say that payments are behind. Hiding that wastes the only days the notice gives you.

What this is not

It is not a promise to stop a taking in payment. It is not a new loan, and it is not credit counselling. If a bankruptcy or a consumer proposal is also in view, read that page and talk to a licensed insolvency trustee before you sign anything. A sale that tries to keep equity away from creditors can be examined later. This page will not describe how to do that, because that is not help you should take from a buyer’s website.