This morning I had the pleasure of waking up just steps from the ocean at my spot in Cape Breton. Picture a travel trailer parked on a rocky beach surrounded by forty acres of forest and about 1200 feet of sheltered and secluded oceanfront.  I started the day on my paddle board followed by a cool dip in the ocean and a coffee on the beach. My mind tends to wander at times like this, and a recu...

Inadequate or Non-existent Suitability Assessments  The key question every litigator will ask as is, “was this mortgage appropriate for this borrower at the time it was arranged”? A good Mortgage Broker would have clearly answered this question in the affirmative and documented it in the mortgage file. In my experience, most Mortgage Brokers and Mortgage Agents fail to document th...

The Canadian mortgage industry got greedy as house prices surged post Covid.  Prior to the run up in prices, it was rare to see more than two people on a mortgage. With surging purchase prices, and tightening regulations by OSFI, your typical two income household wasn’t qualifying for the mortgages they needed. To solve this problem lenders and mortgage brokers started adding additional c...

In the olden days, when a couple wanted to buy a home, they saved for a downpayment, and qualified for a mortgage on their own. Occasionally, they would get a gift from a family member, but it was generally a nominal amount. This all changed post pandemic when house prices accelerated exponentially and people became fearful of never being able to buy a home. We began to see purchasers adding m...

In a recent post / article I talked about the failure of many mortgage brokers and agents to comply with Section 24 and 25 of Ontario Regulation 188/08. These sections deal with disclosure and suitability. At a basic level, disclosure is about information, while suitability is about judgement.  The incompetent mortgage brokers and mortgage agents of the world often fail at both levels,...

Until recently, the mortgage brokerage sector has largely been ignored by regulators and litigators. Everyone was making money in mortgages and even poor advice was profitable. No one complains when times are good but now that the market has turned, we are seeing just how bad the advice was that many borrowers and investors received from their mortgage broker or agent. As Warren Buffet famo...

In the last year I’ve started doing a lot of work as an Expert Witness for litigation involving mortgages, mortgage brokers, or mortgage agents in Ontario.  A common theme I’ve heard a lot of defendants argue is that they weren’t acting as a mortgage broker or agent for the transaction in question. Someone else was arranging the mortgage. Maybe it was a bank, another financial instituti...

The holidays are a great time to spend with family and reflect on what is important in life. This year my now 23-year-old daughter reminded me of what she described as one of her “core memories” growing up. The year was 2013 and she was doing competitive figure skating for the first time. The Port Credit club was hosting a competition and one of the options was a “Family Ice Dance”. This requi...

I was recently hired to offer my expert opinion on a litigation case where a handful of investors agreed to participate in a syndicated private second mortgage on a commercial building. There were many red flags with this transaction but the thing that stuck out the most to me was the lack of experience amongst the multiple mortgage brokers and agents that were involved in the transaction. Most o...

Yesterday, I went for a walk in the woods on a road that was abandoned long ago. It reminded me of the journey we take in life. Sometimes the road is clear and other times we must look a little harder for that road. The outline of it is there but we might have to climb over a few obstacles or cross a brook to find our way.  My professional journey started back in 1989. I would have taken ...