One would think that when you write a cheque to pay for the entire purchase price of a house and hand it to your lawyer that the deal is going to be irrevocably closed and you will never have to worry about title problems or issues related to the ex-owner.
This is not always the case. One of my properties supposedly clear title has been troubled now twice as if it is haunted by the previous owner. In the first instance the ex-owners ex-wife was carrying a bunch of unsecured debt that she undoubtedly was defaulting on. Her banker decided to apply a writ to the title of my property. Thanks to the sellers lawyer being so slow in clearing the ex-owners names off the title the bank was able to get what appeared to be a sizeable lien on my property.
When I received this letter from the land titles office I was suitably aggravated and my first call was to my real estate lawyer. Fortunately my lawyer at the Urban Law Group is Zac, an old friend of mine from elementary-high school and I know his cell number so I can get in touch with him quick. He had a nasty letter drafted up to the lawyer of the bank who put the illegitimate writ on my house and they acted to remove it.
Since the sellers lawyer has not done his job to clear the title of its old financing, these old mortgages linger on the title in a way that continues to frustrate me. In the past five months, the sellers lawyer has had to do this work, it seems reasonable to expect they would be able to comply.
My bank is preparing to assist me with some financing for my next project, and guess what the last of many hurdles I need to overcome is? That's right, the title looks terrible due to all the old mortgages appearing as if they are in place on the title. I look foolish with my banks credit department after telling them the property was unencumbered, and now we have to chase the sellers law firm to get them to do their job (that they were paid to do in August). Here is a heavily redacted version of the letter sent yesterday to the other law firm. Lets hope they move quickly on dealing with their responsibility regarding this matter (and I can proceed to get my project financing in place).
Note the lawyers still use fax to communicate. Maybe fax is the best way to get paperwork over to the law office.