For the past twenty years or so the real estate industry in Ontario has operated under the Real Estate and Business Brokers Act (REBBA). That changed last year with the introduction of the Trust in Real Estate Services Act (TRESA) which brought about some sweeping changes to the way real estate is practiced. The new Act was introduced in phases with the first phase coming into effect in 2022. However, the most significant changes were implemented in phase 2 which was introduced December 1st, 2023.

Your mortgage amortization period is the number of years it will take you to pay off your mortgage. Depending on your choice of amortization period, it will affect how quickly you become mortgage-free as well as how much interest you pay over the lifetime of your mortgage (a longer lifetime equals more interest, whereas a shorter lifetime equals less interest but also bigger payments).

Opening up the Niagara Association of Realtors website, one of the things you are greeted with is a graph depicting market activity over the past year based on Median Sales Price. The current graph is surprising

In our last article, we showed how s. 8 of the Interest Act prevents lenders from imposing a penalty on borrowers who have defaulted on their mortgage. In this second part, we will dig into the case law surrounding this issue, and hopefully solidify once and for all that it is illegal for lenders to impose default penalties on the default of borrowers.

Any excuse for a party. Or at least it sometimes seems that way. But with so much interest in this year’s Super Bowl (Kansas City vs San Francisco), and with so many accomplished cooks among our ranks, it seems like the perfect storm for a chili cook-off.